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THE    MARVELLOUS    YEAR 


/^<^^^. 


THL 

MARVELLOUS 
YEAR 


INTRODUCTION  BY 

EDWIN   MARKHAM 

DRAWINGS  BY 

GERTRUDE  HUEBSCH 


NEW  YORK 


GH 


B.  W.  HUEBSCH 


1909 


Copyright,  1909,  by 
B.  W.  HUEBSCH 


cr 


PUBLISHER'S  NOTE 


IN  such  brief  space  as  this  volume  affords  it  is  mani- 
festly impracticable  to  print  biographies;  indeed  it 
were  supererogatory,  for  facts  about  the  fourteen 
lives  here  celebrated  may  be  obtained  in  encyclopaedias 
and  definitive  Lives. 

It  has  been  the  author's  aim  to  find  the  meaning  of 
each  life,  to  strip  it  of  the  unimportant  details  that  may 
obscure  it,  and  briefly  to  present  the  reason  for  honoring 
the  memory  of  the  great  dead. 

The  title-page  of  this  book  raises  the  obvious  question 
as  to  the  identity  of  the  author  of  the  essays  that  follow. 
The  publisher,  to  his  keen  regret,  is  pledged  to  withhold 
the  writer's  name.  It  is  not  because  of  fear  of  criticism 
if  his  effort  is  unfavorably  received  or  because  of  modesty 
if  it  meets  with  praise,  but  because  his  life  work  is  cast 
in  other  fields  than  that  of  biographical  interpretation, 
that  he  has  so  decided.  While  this  book  has  been  a 
pleasure  to  him  he  is  reluctant  to  associate  his  name 
with  any  activity  but  the  one  which  claims  him. 

The  author  of  these  pages  stands  revealed  in  the  light 
of  his  opening  paragraph  on  Fitzgerald,  and,  after  pe- 
rusing the  entire  book  the  reader  may  agree  that,  not 
only  in  the  spirit  of  humble  reverence  toward  their  work, 
but  in  other  respects,  analogies  between  the  two  writers 
may  be  perceived. 

5 


1415907 


CONTENTS 

Edgar  Allan  Poe 23 

Born.     Boston,  Mass.,  January  19,  1809. 
Died.    Baltimore,  Md.,  October  7,  1849. 

Frederic  Francois  Chopin 29 

Born.     Warsaw,  Poland,  March  i,  1809. 
Died.     Paris,  October  17,  1849. 

Abraham  Lincoln 35 

Born.     Hodgenville,  Ky.,  February  12,  1809. 
Died.     Washington,  April  15,  1865. 

Oliver  Wendell  Holmes 41 

Born.     Cambridge,  Mass.,  August  29,  1809. 
Died.     Boston,  October  7,  1894. 

John  Calvin 47 

Born.     Noyon,  France,  July  10,  1509. 
Died.    Geneva,  May  2y,  1564. 

Samuel  Johnson 53 

Born.     Lichfield,  England,  September  18,  1709. 
Died.    London,  December  13,  1784. 

Charles  Darw^in 59 

Bom.     Shrewsbury,  England,  February  12,  1809. 
Died.     Beckenham,  April  19,  1882. 

Alfred,  Lord  Tennyson 65 

Bom.     Somersby,  England,  August  6,  1809. 
Died.    Aldworth,  October  6,  1892. 

Frances  Anne  Kemble 71 

Born.     London,  November  27,  1809. 
Died.     London,  January  16,   1893. 


Contents 


Franz  Joseph  Haydn "j-j 

Born.     Rohrau,  Austria,  March  31,  1732. 
Died.     Vienna,  May  26,  1809. 

Nikolai  Vasilievitch  Gogol 83 

Born.     Poltava,  Russia,  March,  1809. 

Died.     Moscow,  March  4  (February  21),  1852. 

William  Ewart  Gladstone 89 

Born.     Liverpool,  England,  December  29,  1809. 
Died.     Hawarden,  May  19,  1898. 

Felix  Mendelssohn-Bartholdy ■    •     95 

Born.     Hamburg,  February  5,  1809. 
Died.    Leipzig,  November  4,  1847. 

Edward  Fitzgerald •    .  loi 

Born.     Woodbridge,  England,  March  31,  1809. 
Died.    Merton  Rectory,  Norfolk,  June  14,  1883. 


INTRODUCTION 

BY  EDWIN   MARKHAM 

Man  wandering  here  between  the  two  infinities  craves 
something  to  give  him  his  bearings,  something  to  measure 
his  progress  by,  something  to  show  him  his  relation  to 
his  fellow  voyagers.  He  seizes  on  birthdays,  anniver- 
saries, centuries,  cycles  for  his  milestones  and  tavern- 
stops.  And  now  as  1909  is  reached  and  we  remember 
that  galaxy  of  great  souls  that  drifted  earthward  a  hun- 
dred years  ago,  we  cannot  help  thinking  of  their  place 
and  import  in  the  world  movement,  Darwin,  Lincoln, 
Mendelssohn,  Tennyson,  Poe,  Gladstone,  Gogol,  and 
the  rest — what  a  brilliant  host  to  defy  the  poppy  of 
oblivion!  Large  and  luminous  is  the  field  of  art  and 
science  that  is  lighted  by  the  glory  of  their  names. 

Do  we  seem  tall,  we  modern  men?  Yes,  but  it  is 
because  we  stand  upon  the  shoulders  of  the  mighty  Past. 
The  great  worker  serves  for  the  million  who  work  feebly; 
and  the  great  seer  for  the  million  who  see  dimly.  The 
worker  and  the  seer  send  their  achievements  into  the 
ages.  When  Columbus  swung  back  the  gates  of  the 
ocean,  he  cleared  a  sea-path  for  all  nations  to  the  ends 
of  the  world.  When  Shakespeare  wrote  his  dramas,  he 
unlocked  the  heart  for  all  the  coming  generations. 

9 


Introduction 


The  web  of  history  if  unraveled  would  resolve  itself 
into  strands  which  are  the  lives  of  strong  personalities. 
Looked  at  from  one  point  of  view,  history  is  only  the 
biography  of  great  men.  A  towering  personality  rises 
and  dominates  a  great  epoch,  lighting  a  torch  for  the 
long  centuries.  The  fact  that  he  is  able  to  draw  the 
eyes  of  the  people  is  a  matter  for  rejoicing,  for  it  proves 
that  men  have  the  power  to  see  something  that  is  greater 
than  themselves.  The  masses  are  led  by  the  great  man, 
because  they  think  they  discern  in  him  the  wise,  the 
noble,  the  Godlike.  This  reverence  for  great  men,  this 
upward  looking  to  something  higher  than  ourselves,  is 
the  noblest  thing  in  human  nature. 

What  the  world  needs  most  is  the  wisdom  to  choose  the 
true  leader,  be  he  a  captain  of  politics  or  a  master  of 
learning.  Happy  are  the  people  who  have  recognized 
and  accepted  the  Heaven-sent  messengers.  Most  of  our 
sorrows  rise  from  the  fact  that  we  choose  make-believe 
heroes  and  false  prophets,  not  being  able  to  distinguish 
between  sheet-iron  thunder  and  the  true  artillery  of  the 
heavens — not  being  able  to  distinguish  between  the  jar- 
gon of  the  charlatan  and  the  sphere  music  of  the  seer. 
What  the  people  need,  then,  is  some  touchstone  by  which 
they  can  distinguish  the  true  from  the  false,  the  princes 
from  the  pretenders.  Indeed  the  chief  business  of  a 
people  is  to  find  its  great  man,  and  then  to  hear  his  words 
and  follow  him  on  the  path  of  destiny.  In  honoring 
10 


Introduction 


a  Heaven-sent  leader,  they  express  their  own  nobleness; 
for  they  are  not  honoring  him  as  a  mere  man,  but  as  the 
urn  that  carries  the  sacred  fire  of  the  God. 

Every  year  scatters  its  pollen  of  genius;  but  perhaps 
the  planet  never  before  saw  so  abundant  a  flowering  as 
burst  forth  from  the  wonderful  year  of  1809.  And  of  all 
the  men  of  that  year,  Darwin  has  perhaps  most  widely 
influenced  the  world.  He  was  one  of  the  great  libera- 
tors of  the  mind,  for  he  taught  men  to  follow  facts,  let 
them  lead  where  they  would.  His  "Origin  of  Species," 
while  not  the  final  word  of  course,  was  yet  an  epoch- 
making  book,  one  that  changed  the  face  and  pace  of 
science.  Contradicting  all  thinkers  from  Anaxagoras  to 
Augustine,  from  Moses  to  Milton,  he  swept  away  the 
myth  of  instantaneous  creation  and  revealed  the  rise 
and  march  of  life  as  a  slow  process  of  the  ages. 

Men  felt  at  first  that  the  new  teaching  would  destroy 
all  faith  in  the  spiritual  nature  of  man,  but  it  is  in 
reality  a  strong  support  of  that  faith.  For,  while  the 
pressure  of  the  law  of  natural  selection  may  have  molded 
man's  body  from  a  lower  animal  form,  still  it  is  clear 
that  man's  spiritual  powers  could  not  have  ascended 
from  the  animal  plane.  What  is  evolved  must  be  first 
involved.  The  cause  must  ever  be  as  vast  as  the  effect: 
no  stream  can  rise  above  its  fountain.  So  it  seems  clear 
that  the  spiritual  powers  in  man  must  have  had  a  lofty 
origin,  must  have  descended  from  the  Unseen  Holy  that 

11 


Introduction 


is  above  the  world.  More  than  this,  we  see  now  that 
the  new  teaching  is  not  atheistic,  since  it  merely  dis- 
closes the  divine  method.  Darwin  does  not  reveal  the 
First  Cause  of  things,  nor  does  he  abolish  the  need  for 
a  wise  Purpose  behind  the  movement  of  the  universe. 
Still,  as  of  old,  we  must  say,  "In  the  beginning,  God!" 

Dearer  to  America  than  all  other  men  of  that  wonder- 
ful year  is  Abraham  Lincoln.  Even  the  great  names  of 
Washington  and  Jefferson  burn  with  an  inferior  fire. 
Why  is  this?  Perhaps  because  the  heart  of  man  is  so 
contrived  that  only  martyrdom  can  move  its  deepest  emo- 
tion. More  than  this,  we  feel  Lincoln  to  be  one  of  us, 
and  so  a  brother;  yet  also  to  have  in  him  that  star  of 
conscience  that  makes  him  kindred  to  the  ideal  toward 
which  in  our  nobler  moments  we  all  aspire.  He  touches 
us,  therefore,  on  our  human  side  and  on  our  angel  side. 
So  Lincoln  has  become  the  American  Ideal,  the  chief 
unifying  force  in  our  multiform  republic.  To  him 
death  was  not  death,  for  after  all  these  years  he  is  more 
alive  than  when  he  walked  among  us.  His  spirit  is 
now  the  most  vital  breath  of  life  under  the  ribs  of  the 
nation.  He  is  the  power  among  us  that  makes  us  think 
of  something  besides  dollars  and  dividends.  He  is  a 
voice  asserting  the  concerns  of  the  soul,  declaring  that 
a  life  is  more  than  a  living,  that  manhood  is  more  than 
money. 

Gladstone's  fame  is  secure,  as  the  greatest  political 

12 


Introduction 


leader  of  the  Victorian  era.  Only  John  Bright  stands 
at  Gladstone's  level.  They  were  great  because  they 
dared  to  hold  for  ideal  and  unworldly  considerations. 
Disraeli  was  distinguished  also;  but  Gladstone  excels 
him  in  that  reach  of  the  spirit  that  ranks  social  welfare 
higher  than  selfish  gain.  As  far  as  his  vision  went, 
Gladstone  stood  for  the  sacred  rights  of  the  people.  He 
cared  less  for  England's  prestige  as  an  imperial  power 
than  for  England's  performance  as  a  righteous  power. 
He  stood  for  liberating  ideas — for  free  trade,  equal  tax- 
ation, popular  education,  domestic  industry,  Irish  Home 
Rule,  peace  among  the  nations.  While  perhaps  he  did 
not  see  all  that  Carlyle  and  Ruskin  saw,  still  he  was  one 
of  the  great  forces  whose  onrushing  billow  of  influence 
is  still  making  for  righteousness. 

There  is  a  growing  inclination  to  change  the  verdict 
in  regard  to  Mendelssohn,  who  for  a  long  time  dominated 
the  mid-century  musical  sentimentalists.  The  great 
school  of  romantic  music  that  culminated  in  the  Wag- 
nerean  opera,  was  at  the  birth  of  Mendelssohn,  touching 
the  world  with  its  first  ripples.  Mendelssohn  was  never 
caught  into  this  movement  although  he  swayed  a  little 
to  its  influence.  He  leaned  to  the  formal,  the  precise, 
the  elegant;  and  his  conservatism  has  helped  to  check  the 
revolutionary  fury  of  the  romantics.  He  had  fancy,  not 
imagination,  and  did  his  loveliest  work  in  the  little 
charmed  circle  of  faerie.     He  followed  public  sentiment, 

13 


Introduction 


instead  of  calling  from  a  height  to  "come  and  see." 
Nevertheless,  "The  Wedding  March,"  fervid,  festal, 
jubilant,  cries  a  rapture  for  us;  and  the  overture  to 
"A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream"  still  works  its  miracle 
of  beauty  on  our  hearts. 

In  Chopin  we  find  another  order  of  genius;  for  he 
came  as  a  revolutionist  declaring  war  against  the  mu- 
sical traditions.  And  yet  so  delicate  and  lyrical  is 
Chopin's  work  that  it  might  be  said  to  have  only  "the 
frail  duration  of  a  flower."  His  chief  significance  lay 
in  his  revolutionary  defiance  of  dead  classic  correctness 
and  in  the  magic  elasticity  of  his  chords,  which  are 
heightened  even  by  discords.  He  was  a  son  of  revolu- 
tion, a  builder  of  the  new  liberties  of  art. 

Poe  casts  from  literary  America  the  longest  shadow 
across  the  world.  He  has  left  us  a  group  of  wonderful 
tales  of  ratiocination  and  mystery — tales  that  have 
started  schools  of  story-telling.  He  gave  America  her 
first  body  of  significant  criticism,  reviews  sweeping  to- 
gether the  principles  of  literary  art.  He  has  left  only  a 
thin  volume  of  verse;  but  it  is  refined  gold  almost  pure, 
carven  diamond  almost  flawless.  He  is  detached,  hav- 
ing sprung  from  the  brain  of  no  preceding  master.  He 
touched  the  lyre  of  poetry  with  a  unique  stroke  giving  a 
new  music  to  the  world. 

Edward  Fitzgerald,  through  his  remarkable  translation 

14 


Introduction 


of  "The  Rubaiyat"  of  Omar  Khayyam,  has  become  one  of 
the  great  literary  forces  of  our  century.  Perhaps  no 
poem  is  more  widely  known  among  the  cultivated 
classes.  I  say  this  to  state  a  fact — not  to  express  a 
pleasure.  For  I  think  that  no  poem  has  ever  done  more 
harm  to  the  world ;  for  it  has  tended  to  break  down  in  the 
mind  of  men  that  heroic  attitude  toward  life  that  is 
the  central  force  in  character.  However,  there  is  one 
moral  excellence  in  the  poem;  for  it  represents  Omar  as 
beginning  life  as  an  earnest  seeker  after  truth,  a  man 
not  ready  to  fall  into  the  easy  rut  of  custom,  a  man  de- 
termined to  think  out  life's  problem  for  himself.  Man 
is  a  rational  being;  so  it  is  ever  true  that  his  opinions 
are  not  real  opinions  till  they  have  been  examined  by 
his  reason.  Many  men  accept  their  opinions  ready- 
made:  most  ideas  are  only  quotations,  echoes  from  real 
voices.  So  in  this  light  we  can  approve  of  the  rebel 
Omar,  and  wish  him  well  in  his  search  for  the  absolute 
reality  and  veracity. 

But  the  sad  thing  in  Omar  is  that  he  offers  us  at  last 
a  weak,  childish  philosophy,  a  philosophy  of  dust  and 
ashes.  Live  for  the  moment;  ride  the  pleasure  bubble 
— this  is  his  final  message.  He  stopped  his  search  too 
soon :  he  should  have  kept  on  searching  till  he  found  an 
Answer  that  is  as  dignified  as  the  Question.  He  makes 
pleasure  the  end  of  life — a  poor  pitiful  gospel  for  these 

15. 


Introduction 


men  of  Time,  who  have  been  sent  forth  to  walk  mys- 
terious Earth,  with  the  stars  above  them  and  the  graves 
below  them. 

Tennyson  represented  his  century  in  its  love  of  art,  its 
delight  in  science,  its  speculation  on  the  meaning  of  life 
and  death,  and  in  a  certain  mild  reaction  against  social 
wrongs.  But  he  only  echoed  his  century;  he  did  not 
lead  it  with  the  bugle  of  advance.  He  was  not  the 
prophet  on  the  morning-lighted  peak,  crying,  "Awake 
to  the  coming  wonder !"  He  was  rather  the  outrider  safe 
upon  the  coach,  crying,  "Behold  the  wonder  that  has 
come!"  The  glories  and  the  terrors  of  the  radical  never 
reached  his  serene  and  sheltered  place. 

In  his  "In  Memoriam"  (as  Milton  in  "Paradise  Lost," 
as  Dante  in  "The  Divine  Comedy")  he  debates  the  stern 
old  problem  of  the  destiny  of  man.  Yet  in  this  poem, 
summed  in  exquisite  elegy  and  lovely  lyric,  we  find  only 
the  theology  of  his  own  day  tinctured  by  a  touch  of  the 
current  mysticism  and  a  trace  of  the  current  science.  In 
the  "Idyls  of  the  King,"  those  jewelled  miniatures  of 
narrative,  Tennyson  represents  not  so  much  the  fabled 
court  of  Arthur  as  the  polite  society  of  the  court  of  Vic- 
toria catalogued  in  the  Blue  Book  of  his  time.  The 
great  failure  of  Tennyson  was  his  failure  to  catch  the 
full  meaning  of  Democracy,  its  final  meaning — Social 
Democracy.  Here  he  did  not  rise  toward  the  higher 
16 


Introduction 


levels  of  his  era  where  William  Morris  and  John  Ruskin 
walked  the  purer  air.  He  revered  Law,  but  he  seems 
to  have  made  the  mistake  of  imagining  that  law  supports 
and  excuses  the  traditional  evils  about  us,  evils  that  are 
the  mere  creation  of  human  folly  and  selfishness.  His 
trust  was  in  evolution,  forgetting  that  men  must  push 
with  God. 

But,  while  Tennyson  was  not  a  radical  and  aggres- 
sive mind,  he  was  nevertheless  for  sheer  beauty  near  the 
front  rank  of  the  world's  great  poets,  and  he  had  to  the 
full  the  honor  of  his  generation.  He  came  to  stand  for 
all  the  gentlenesses  and  graces  of  life,  for  the  values 
beyond  the  material,  for  the  verities  and  sanctities  of 
the  past,  for  the  meaning  and  majesty  of  the  present. 
He  was  always  the  exquisite  artist:  he  painted  nature 
with  fine  fidelity;  he  pictured  woman  with  a  pure  white 
reverence;  he  kept  his  faith  in  the  Unseen  and  insisted 
on  the  oneness  of  all  life.  As  Browning  stood  for  the 
supremacy  of  spirit,  so  Tennyson  stood  for  the  supremacy 
of  law.  He  caught  up  the  worship  of  beauty  which  had 
risen  to  a  white  flame  in  the  poetry  of  Keats;  and 
through  all  the  long  years  of  his  service  to  the  muse  of 
poesy,  he  was  faithful  to  this  high  apostolate. 

While  Tennyson  did  not  beat  the  gong  of  revolt,  while 
he  did  not  sound  the  clarion  of  social  justice;  yet  at 
times  the  flash  of  a  great  vision  passed  over  his  soul 

17 


Introduction 


to  stir  the  larger  hopes  that  make  us  men.  Once  he 
saw  humanity,  after  the  long  brute  ages,  standing  at  last 
upon  a  sunrise  height,  where 

"the  war-drum  throbbed  no  longer  and  the  battle 
flags  were  furled 
In  the  Parliament  of  Man,  the  Federation  of  the  World." 

These  names  of  1809  stand  high  among  the  great  lead- 
ers of  humanity.  It  is  the  fashion  nowadays  to  deny 
the  need  of  leaders;  as  though  a  wheel  could  run  with- 
out a  hub.  But  the  need  of  leaders  is  a  vital  necessity, 
one  that  this  human  race  will  not  pass  beyond  in  the  next 
thousand  millenniums.  The  leader  of  course  is  not 
needed  to  do  the  work  of  the  people,  but  rather  to  in- 
spire the  people  to  do  their  own  work — to  cheer  their 
hearts  and  unify  their  energies  in  the  effort  to  conquer 
the  world.  Leaders  do  not  come  to  pour  out  treasures 
for  us:  they  cannot  bestow  by  pure  gift-giving.  They 
can  only  quicken  our  sleeping  powers.  They  liberate 
our  forces ;  they  carry  new  freedoms.  They  send  the  rut- 
held  spirit  out  on  voyages  of  discovery,  where  the  dim 
eyes  open  to  new  horizons.  They  cannot  make  the  jour- 
ney for  us,  for  nothing  is  known  that  is  not  experienced. 
So  they  only  blaze  the  way  and  beckon  us  to  follow. 

Great  men  help  us  to  see  the  meanings  of  our  exist- 
ence :  they  reveal  us  to  ourselves.  They  point  out  to  us 
the  large  relations  of  things,  help  us  to  grasp  the  unity 
18 


Introduction 


that  is  behind  nature  and  history.  Great  souls  see  the 
need  of  the  people,  and  show  them  how  to  satisfy  that 
need:  they  see  the  waste  of  the  energies  of  the  people, 
and  teach  them  the  divine  economies ;  they  see  the  people 
stumbling  on  rough  paths,  and  point  them  to  the  divine 
highways;  they  see  the  people  stammering  for  a  word, 
and  teach  them  how  to  speak  that  word.  The  great 
man  creates  order  in  the  chaos  of  life  and  thought. 
If  he  comes  as  a  man  of  action  among  a  mob  of  men,  he 
comes  ready  to  organize  them  into  a  working  force.  If 
he  comes  as  a  seer,  he  will  disclose  to  them  a  new  sense 
of  values:  he  will  reveal  to  the  poor  their  unheeded 
wealth,  and  to  the  rich  their  unsuspected  poverty.  One 
great  soul  can  make  all  men  feel  a  sense  of  greatness. 


Westerleigh  Park, 
Staten  Island,  N.  Y. 


19 


EDGAR  ALLAN  FOE 


The  Manielhus  Year 


Edgar  Allan  Poe 

It  has  been,  once  and  again,  a  critical  fashion  to  dis- 
cuss Poe's  place  in  literature,  to  debate  with  more  or 
less  of  acrimony  whether  he  had  any  such  place  at  all. 

An  idle  speculation  it  now  seems.  A  place  in  litera- 
ture cannot  be  denied  him  so  long  as  the  verdict  of 
the  reading  public  has  kept  alive  the  memory  of  some 
of  his  poetry,  of  much  of  his  story  product.  So  long 
as  "The  Raven"  remains  a  memory,  so  long  as  "The  Fall 
of  the  House  of  Usher,"  "The  Murders  in  the  Rue  Mor- 
gue," even  "The  Gold  Bug"  are  read  with  zest  sufficient 
to  call  for  newer  and  newer  editions,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  the  author  occupies  a  place  in  literature. 

Poe  was  the  voice  of  protest  against  the  commonplace, 
a  protest  in  voice  and  in  example. 

His  criticism,  the  protest  in  voice,  we  may  now  neg- 
lect. We  may  well  acknowledge  that  in  his  critical 
efforts  he  showed  a  tendency  to  degenerate  into  the  com- 
mon scold.  That  he  denied  to  Longfellow  the  posses- 
sion of  poetic  art  is  a  thing  of  the  past  to  us,  the  greater 
jury  has  rendered  justice  between  the  two  men.  That 
the  editorial  conduct  of  the  American  magazines  of  his 
time  moved  him  to  wrath  can  awaken  in  us  but  the  most 
tepid  interest,  for  few  except  the  students  of  the  develop- 
ment of  American  literature  could  now  bring  themselves 

23 


i8o9  Edgar  Allan  Poe  1849 

to  engage  upon  a  course  of  such  reading.  Since,  then, 
we  have  no  interest  in  the  magazines  themselves  we 
have  less  concern  with  the  controversy  in  which  Gris- 
wold  so  hotly  engaged.  Even  that  took  the  form  of 
the  argumentum  ad  homincm,  Poe  was  a  most  improper 
person  in  his  short  life,  therefore  he  could  not  lay  claim 
to  literary  excellence.  He  was  poor,  and  that  is  an 
offence  to  such  as  have  pockets  well  lined.  He  was  ill, 
and  the  charity  of  science  had  not  in  his  time  reached 
the  point  of  recognizing  that  such  an  addiction  as  from 
time  to  time  proved  too  strong  for  him  needed  the  physi- 
cian rather  than  the  constable.  If  he  was  out  of  joint 
with  his  times  there  was  no  less  a  dislocation  in  the  times. 

So  much  for  his  protest  in  voice.  Poe  is  not  remem- 
bered for  his  essays  in  criticism.  They  survive  only  as 
they  may  be  disinterred  by  those  who  seek  to  account 
for  the  storms  which  beat  upon  him. 

Of  the  protest  in  example  let  us  first  glance  briefly 
at  his  verse.  Everybody  of  his  time  wrote  verse,  it 
was  an  age  of  poets.  But  who  now  recalls  a  poem  or 
a  poet  before  "The  Raven?"  It  was  as  formal  and 
mechanical  as  the  strumming  of  the  harp  for  the  enter- 
tainment of  visitors  after  dinner,  and  the  notes  lasted 
just  as  long  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other.  It  was  an 
art  mechanical,  the  feet  must  scan  on  finger  reckoning, 
the  rhymes  were  but  echoes  of  accepted  rhymes  in  the 
poetical  stock,  it  was  still  the  fashion  to  set  off  three 
lines  when  they  chanced  to  rhyme  so  much  by  a  3-line 
brace,  one  sees  the  like  in  Pope's  Homer.  Upon  this 
24 


i8o9  Edgar  Allan  Poe  1849 

trade  of  poetry  came  Poe  with  new  forms,  with  new 
life,  above  all  with  new  adjectives.  Men  were  afraid 
of  their  adjectives,  a  newcomer  was  in  suspicion,  it  might 
be  improper.  Fancy  the  family  circle  when  it  first  en- 
countered such  a  line  as  "the  scoriae  rivers  do  roll  I"  Mr. 
Pope  never  wrote  such  a  word  as  that,  nor  Mr.  Dryden, 
nor  yet  the  elegant  Mr.  Willis.  "Scoriae?"  why,  that 
seems  scarcely  proper,  a  dangerous  innovator,  this  young 
Poe,  and  they  say  he  drinks,  too.  But  take  now  a  census 
of  the  present  memory,  count  up  the  images  and  the  lines 
which  one  remembers  of  Poe  and  those  of  the  elegant 
Mr.  Willis  and  see  what  the  verdict  is.  Look  at  the 
later  verse  and  see  whether  it  follows  the  Poe  spirit  of 
freedom  or  the  classic  stupidity  of  those  who  denied  him 
a  place. 

The  truest  of  Poe's  protest  In  example  was  his  creation 
for  all  literature,  not  only  American  literature  but  all 
literature.  This  was  the  short  story,  the  novel  of  action 
completed  in  few  words.  Fiction  had  sunk  when  he 
came  upon  his  work  and  the  depth  of  its  sinking  was  very 
low.  The  novel  was  a  dreary  waste  of  sluggish  inac- 
tivity. Its  place  was  largely  taken  by  the  sketch,  the 
advantage  lying  solely  in  the  fact  that  the  latter  was 
brief.  Again  we  encounter  the  elegant  Mr.  Willis. 
He  was  indefatigable  in  the  production  of  sketches,  his 
output  was  enormous,  each  one  was  brief,  and  that  is 
the  best  that  can  be  said  of  any  one  of  his  sketches. 

Of  this  form  of  composition  Poe  took  but  one  element, 
the  short  tale  of  the  words,  the  mere  arithme_tic  of  the 

25 


i8o9  Edgar  Allan  Poe  1849 

form.  He  put  life  into  the  dull  sketch,  he  made  of  each 
a  living  story  within  the  short  compass,  he  saw  his  end 
before  he  began  and  he  built  up  the  story  of  action,  the 
story  of  thought,  the  story  of  both  action  and  thought. 
It  was  a  new  creation,  it  was  so  new  that  the  name  was 
lacking,  it  was  nothing  but  the  short  story.  Yet  that 
name  which  was  then  no  name  at  all  has  taken  a  dom- 
inant position  in  the  history  of  literary  form.  It  has 
been  intrinsically  an  American  form.  It  has  passed  over 
to  France  and  has  undergone  there  an  almost  parallel, 
only  slightly  divergent,  course  of  development  beside  its 
progress  here.  In  England  and  in  Germany  it  has  been 
followed  with  closer  imitation  and  less  spirit. 

Having  created  the  form  Poe  did  yet  more  within  that 
form.  If  the  detective  story  has  any  attraction,  if  the 
unravelling  of  mystery  has  power  to  hold  the  reader,  then 
Poe  still  stands  the  unrivalled  master  and  his  incidents 
in  the  Rue  Morgue  and  the  thinly  veiled  local  tragedy 
of  Marie  Roget  stand  at  the  head  of  that  art.  If  the 
vivisection  of  the  human  soul  carries  an  appeal  then  the 
first  rank  again  is  taken  by  the  House  of  Usher,  such  a 
psychopathic  story  as  has  never  been  equalled.  If  the 
horror  of  tragedy  be  sought  again  we  find  Poe  at  its 
height  in  the  pendulum  ever  swinging  with  its  razor 
edge. 

Yet  with  all  this  remains  an  echo  of  the  distant  past, 
the  Hall  of  Fame  omits  Poe,  and  the  popular  verdict 
omits  the  Hall  of  Fame. 
26 


FREDERIC  FRANCOIS  CHOPIN 


The  Man'elhus  Year 


Frederic  Francois  Chopin 

Of  a  short  life  of  forty  years  a  little  more  than  two 
thirds  was  marked  by  creative  activity  in  his  art.  Of 
mixed  origin  Poland  has  always  claimed  Chopin  as  the 
most  brilliant  of  Polish  musicians. 

The  elder  Chopin,  a  Frenchman,  was  an  instructor  of 
the  young  nobility  in  Warsaw  and  married  a  Polish 
woman  of  good  family.  The  son  was  carefully  reared 
in  close  association  with  the  better  and  more  refined  so- 
ciety of  the  former  capital  of  that  much  harassed  king- 
dom and  both  early  and  deep  imbibed  the  spirit  which 
had  made  Poland  a  distinct  seat  of  culture  when  its  neigh- 
bor countries  were  dark  wildernesses  and  rude  communi- 
ties. Such  was  the  foundation  of  his  art,  though  but  a 
small  portion  of  his  active  career  was  passed  in  his  birth- 
place. Yet  the  spirit  of  Poland  remained  ever  close  to 
him  and  he  is  justly  regarded  as  the  foremost  exponent 
of  the  Polish  musical  taste  both  in  form  and  in  essence. 
His  early  musical  education  was  given  him  by  Eisner 
in  Warsaw,  a  teacher  of  painstaking  method  yet  amply 
endowed  with  spirit  to  encourage  the  rich  talent  which 
he  found  in  his  young  pupil.     To  this  fostering  zeal  we 

29 


i8o9  Frederic  Francois  Chopin  1849 

owe  it  that  Chopin  first  published  at  the  age  of  sixteen. 
Two  years  later  he  was  in  Vienna  appearing  in  concert 
with  great  success,  and  this  was  followed  by  slow  travel 
through  the  musical  centres  of  eastern  Germany. 

Paris  he  reached  in  1832,  he  found  himself  already 
expected  and  at  once  entered  into  associations  of  the 
closest  intimacy  with  the  bright  circle  of  distinguished 
friends  who  chained  him  to  his  father's  home.  There- 
after he  rarely  separated  himself  from  this  congenial  and 
admiring  company,  never  willingly,  seldom  for  any 
length  of  time.  Even  to  the  invitation  of  musical  Eng- 
land which  lay  so  near  he  yielded  but  twice,  once  in  1837 
and  again  in  1848,  the  year  before  his  death,  although 
his  reception  on  each  visit  was  flattering  and  triumphant. 

Other  musicians  have  won  their  fame  in  their  public 
appearances.  Chopin  was  almost  a  recluse  in  that 
respect,  he  could  rarely  be  induced  to  appear  in  concert 
even  when  his  position  was  unassailable.  Yet  he  was 
a  consummate  master  of  the  piano  and  could  have  filled 
his  time  with  the  engagements  which  were  vainly  show- 
ered upon  him.  It  was  clearly  a  disinclination  to  become 
known  through  that  means,  not  at  all  a  distrust  of  his 
powers.  In  the  intimacy  of  his  chosen  circle  his  execu- 
tion upon  that  instrument  was  so  brilliant  as  to  charm 
even  the  most  skilful  and  to  impel  strangers  to  every 
device  to  gain  admission  to  these  impromptu  concerts. 
For  himself  and  his  dear  friends  he  lived  in  the  richest 

30 


i8o9  FREDfRic  Francois  Chopin  1849 

atmosphere  of  music:  to  strangers  he  chose  to  be  known 
only  through  his  written  message. 

With  a  few  unimportant  exceptions  of  pieces  prepared 
for  the  orchestra  he  wrote  wholly  for  the  piano,  and 
far  more  than  any  of  his  predecessors  he  brought  the  art 
of  that  instrument  to  a  high  pitch.  In  the  matter  of 
form  the  great  majority  of  his  compositions  were  written 
as  concertos,  waltzes,  nocturnes,  mazurkas  and  preludes 
and  with  a  peculiar  predisposition  toward  the  older 
Polish  national  forms.  His  fancy  was  in  the  highest 
degree  poetic  and  enjoyed  the  smoothness  of  the  lyric 
measures.  Yet  under  the  smooth  finish  there  is  deep 
subtlety  in  idea;  and  the  harmonies,  while  intricate, 
abound  in  graceful  effects  stamped  throughout  with  an 
individual  touch.  This  commanding  individuality 
dominates  in  all  his  work  the  personal  peculiarities  of 
rhythm  and  melody  and  the  charm  both  delicate  and 
strong  which  tax  to  the  utmost  limit  the  powers  of  the 
performer  who  would  fitly  interpret  Chopin  and  which 
are  no  unworthy  challenge  to  the  most  inspired  efforts 
of  the  rare  genius  of  the  piano. 

We  have  already  spoken  of  his  use  of  the  ancient  Pol- 
ish forms.  His  mother  land  influenced  him  far  more 
widely  than  in  form.  His  patriotism  was  a  fire,  a  passion. 
When  he  composed  in  the  Polish  form  his  soul  was 
aquiver  with  the  tempest  of  suffering  and  revolt  against 
the  oppressor,  which  refused  to  see  that  hope  was  indeed 

31 


i8o9  Frederic  Fran(^ois  Chopin  1849 

hopeless.  With  heart  and  soul  he  was  the  greatest  in- 
terpreter of  the  national  spirit  and  his  notes  spoke  to  his 
brethren  among  his  mother's  race  more  keenly  than  words 
could  ever  speak  to  a  people  so  replete  with  sympathy. 
In  this  his  centennial  year  Chopin  to  the  Poles  is  not  an 
artist  to  awaken  their  pride,  he  is  the  voice  of  a  nation's 
devotion. 


32 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


The  Marvellous  Year 


Abraham  Lincoln 

What  manner  of  man  was  he,  on  the  blood-eroded 
grave-sculptured  hills  of  an  obscure  Pennsylvania  vil- 
lage, who  in  few  words  could  confer  immortality? 
What  a  soul  it  was  that  called  forth  from  a  nation's  heart 
grief-tortured  the  poignant  sob 

"O  Captain  I  my  Captain  I  our  fearful  trip  is  done." 

Reverently  we  approach  the  centenary  of  Lincoln. 
At  once  the  distance  vanishes,  the  centennial  vanishes 
with  a  rolling  up  of  all  the  years,  we  find  the  martyr  no 
remote  object  of  veneration  but  our  Lincoln  yet  living 
in  our  hearts,  no  distant  figure.  And  well  so.  When 
the  leaf  of  May  is  yielding  to  the  bloom  of  June  our 
eyes  yet  see  the  march  in  blue  of  the  remnant  of  those 
who  sent  heavenward  the  brave  shout  "we  are  coming. 
Father  Abraham,  a  hundred  thousand  strong."  Aye  I  ten 
thousand  times  ten  thousand  they  came  in  those  dark  and 
bitter  days,  strong  to  battle  for  their  country  and  offer- 
ing personal  devotion  to  the  man  whose  name  was  on 
every  lip.  And  when  their  work  was  done  they  tri- 
umphed in  the  march  past  of  the  Grand  Army  before  their 
Captain  soon  to  lay  down  his  bitter  toil  too  early. 
Others  there  are,  men  and  women  no  more  than  at  the 
crest  of  achievement,  whose  childhood  memories  are  yet 

3i 


i8o9  Abraham  Lincoln  1865 

vivid  of  long  hours  spent  in  scraping  lint,  a  service  of 
war  whose  object  was  obscured  in  the  feeling  that  it  was 
personal  service  for  their  Uncle  Abe.  It  is  yet  years  too 
soon  for  our  Lincoln  to  recede  to  the  cold  glitter  of  his- 
tory and  its  statues,  he  yet  lives  the  Lincoln  of  our  hearts. 

The  story  of  his  life  has  been  written  and  rewritten, 
no  public  man  has  ever  been  so  laid  before  his  people 
in  such  a  wealth  of  study  of  his  public  acts  and  record 
of  his  private  life,  all  clean  and  sweet.  To  that  record 
we  cannot  add,  to  the  volume  of  appreciation  we  may 
not  contribute. 

Yet  it  will  not  be  idle  to  essay  if  haply  we  may  point 
to  one  or  two  of  the  broad  lines  of  his  life  which  not 
only  made  the  man  great  but  greater  made  him  lovable. 
Even  in  the  stress  of  war  he  was  lovable,  he  appealed  to 
sweet  souls.  It  cannot  be  forgotten  that  in  many  a  home 
in  those  bitter  days  of  loss  above  the  crepe-knotted  sad 
sabre  upon  the  wall  hung  the  picture  of  the  Lincoln  for 
whom  that  sacrifice  had  been  made,  and  that  picture  was 
through  choice  the  sad-eyed  father  with  his  little  son 
reading  at  his  knee. 

Was  it  not  because  to  Lincoln  the  people  was  a  faith? 

Here  was  a  pian  to  whom  by  birth,  by  pioneer  ancestry, 
by  rude  upbringing  it  was  given  to  be  an  elemental  Re- 
publican. Small  storekeeper,  volunteer  in  the  Indian 
war  of  his  remote  frontier,  self-made  lawyer  and  rider 
of  a  distant  circuit,  he  knew  the  people,  he  believed 
the  people  majestic,  they  believed  him  true.  At  cross- 
roads and  courthouse  he  met  his  people  and  he  shared 
36 


i8o9  Abraham  Lincoln  1865 

their  thought.  With  his  people  he  knew  that  the  dis- 
tant statesmanship  of  the  nation  at  its  capital,  no  more 
remote  in  difference  of  longitude  than  in  point  of  view, 
^  was  handled  to  a  failure  growing  ever  greater  by  an 
oligarchy.  But  he — one  man,  the  voice  of  many — was 
keen  to  see  where  safety  lay,  even  through  the  passage 
perilous.  A  man  of  the  people,  a  man  who  believed  in 
the  people,  never  out  of  touch  with  their  thought  he 
stood  a  man  of  a  fixed  idea,  massive,  compelling,  in- 
stinct with  success.  To  him  it  was  crystal  clear  that 
the  fathers  had  given  to  this  land  a  government  by  the 
people. 

A  great  moral  question,  yet  of  interminable  economic 
complication,  was  setting  the  people  against  the  people. 
On  the  one  side  aggression,  on  the  other  smug  timidity. 
Oligarchy  and  timidity  were  proceeding  hand  in  hand 
from  compromise  that  was  all  one  sided  to  the  stifling 
of  the  voice  of  the  great  people. 

His  service  in  Congress  accomplished  little  externally. 
Internally  it  did  much,  he  saw  at  first  hand  the  method 
of  the  combination  and  compromise  that  characterized 
legislation  and  he  saw  how  far  it  had  drifted  away  from 
the  purpose  of  the  country's  government. 

On  the  moral  issue  of  slavery  he  was  heart  and  soul 
with  his  people,  he  was  devoted  to  the  cause  of  freedom. 
Great  as  the  issue  was,  his  was  the  discerning  mind  to 
see  that  it  was  but  an  incident,  that  under  it  lay  a  greater 
issue,  even  as  the  issue  of  national  life  and  death.  It 
was  given  him  to  pen  the  words  that  gave  freedom 

37 


l809  Abraham  Lincoln  1865 

to  the  slave,  yet  his  proclamation  of  freedom  was  but 
an  incident  in  his  greater  course,  it  came  almost  as  a 
war  convenience,  a  move  of  strategy. 

Let  us  not  lose  sight  of  the  fundamental  fact  that  this 
was  a  man  of  the  people.  In  a  free  people  and  an  inde- 
pendent he  saw  no  class  lines,  no  sufficient  custom  that 
some  should  rule  and  some  should  be  governed  save  only 
as  the  Constitution  provided. 

Of  a  people  he  knew  there  must  be  government,  the 
state  must  be  secure  and  to  every  man  must  be  life, 
liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  And  by  whom  was 
this  people  to  be  governed?  Again  the  noble  mind  was 
true  to  type,  he  saw  that  it  must  be  government  by  the 
people  or  not  at  all  such  government  as  our  ancestors  had 
fought  for. 

That  was  enough  inspiration  to  carry  him  into  the 
shock  of  war,  it  was  for  that  end  he  called  upon  the 
people  to  come  to  the  defence  of  their  rights.  After  all 
the  compromises,  after  all  the  fine  drawn  decisions  of 
the  courts,  after  all  the  timidity  of  legislation  he  went 
direct  to  the  heart  of  the  people  and  he  found  that  they 
trusted  him. 

And  when  the  tide  of  war  was  turning,  when  victory 
might  at  last  be  hoped  for,  we  hear  upon  that  Gettysburg 
air  the  simple  enunciation  of  the  immortality  of  govern- 
ment when  it  is  that  of  the  people  in  its  triple  chain.  It 
was  the  voice  of  the  people  speaking,  and  the  people  be- 
lieved in  the  man  who  spoke  this  truth,  they  trusted  him^ 
they  loved  him,  they  love  him  yet. 
38 


OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 


The  Marvtlhus  Year 


Oliver  Wendell  Holmes 

It  is  by  no  means  easy  to  unravel  the  thread  of  a  single 
life  from  that  pattern  of  brilliant  men  who  for  a  genera- 
tion made  of  Boston  and  Cambridge,  the  Harvard  group, 
the  dominant  centre  of  American  literary  activity. 
They  were  many,  philosophers,  wits,  historians,  poets — 
the  pages  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly  record  their  manifold 
activities.  Yet  in  that  group  it  will  be  found  less  dif- 
ficult to  unthread  the  position  of  Dr.  Holmes. 

To  the  lay  recollection  he  stands  out  from  his  Break- 
fast Table,  the  Autocrat,  the  Professor,  the  Poet.  In 
the  world  of  medicine  he  is  equally  recalled  for  his 
genius  as  an  instructor,  for  his  accurate  skill  as  an  anat- 
omist, for  his  facility  in  microscopic  investigations. 
These  were,  the  latter  his  vocation,  the  former  his  agree- 
able avocation. 

It  is  not  in  his  own  work  that  one  is  to  look  for  the 
best  of  Dr.  Holmes,  good  though  that  work  was.  It  is 
in  the  memoirs  and  the  letters  of  the  others  of  his  time, 
in  the  life  of  his  chosen  friends,  that  one  is  able  to  see 
what  an  impress  this  modest  wit  and  brilliant  physician 
made  upon  his  fellows. 

To  the  greater  workers  of  his  busy  circle  of  acquaint- 
ance he  was  always  the  cordial  and  discriminating  critic. 
To  him  they  came  with  their  plans  while  yet  they  were 

41 


i8o9  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  1894 

in  the  early  stage  of  uncertain  aspiration,  to  him  they 
came  with  the  early  draft  of  their  product.  To  such 
effort  as  bore  promise,  no  matter  how  crude  its  initial 
condition  might  be,  he  gave  approval  and  kindly  help 
in  setting  it  on  the  road  to  success.  He  delighted  in 
giving  earnest  service  in  clearing  up  the  doubts  which 
must  cluster  about  a  newly  planned  enterprise  in  lit- 
erature. He  had  the  happy  nature  which  could  dispel 
dull  hesitation  and  set  in  motion  the  gears  of  enthusiasm. 
His  was  a  fine  art  of  criticism,  an  almost  unerring  sense 
of  what  was  best  in  literary  finish  and  a  manner  of  com- 
municating his  suggestions  that  left  the  amendment  no 
patch  from  the  outside  but  an  unmistakable  part  of  the 
original  design.  The  friends  who  profited  by  his  kindly 
skill  have  left  many  a  record,  not  merely  of  credit  to 
him  but  in  yet  richer  measure  of  enthusiastic  gratitude. 
Had  he  written  nothing  of  his  own  his  position  would 
have  been  secure  in  the  annals  of  his  time. 

Yet  he  has  left,  and  on  shelves  of  our  libraries  not 
by  any  means  relegated  to  disuse,  an  agreeable  record 
of  his  own  activities  with  an  attractive  pen.  If  we  put 
to  one  side  the  purely  professional  papers  of  his  healing 
art  the  record  is  no  long  one.  There  is  the  breakfast 
table  series  and  its  later  companion  of  the  teacups. 
There  is  "Elsie  \^enner."  There  are  a  few  volumes  of 
his  verse.     None  has  lost  its  charm,  all  are  still  read. 

Verse  was  Dr.  Holmes's  first  choice  of  a  medium  and 
he  never  left  it  far  outside  his  interest.  His  muse  was 
42 


i8o9  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  1894 

never  tragic,  prolonged  effort  in  metre  possessed  no  at- 
traction for  him.  He  was  at  his  best  in  occasional  verse 
and  in  the  shorter  lyric  measures.  His  best  efforts  lay 
in  occasional  poems,  trifles  to  enhance  the  sense  of  con- 
tent which  comes  after  a  good  dinner.  Among  these 
efforts  of  his  were  some  of  the  best  of  their  class  in  the 
language,  some  which  challenge  admiration  long  after 
the  occasion  has  passed  into  the  realm  of  the  forgotten 
and  the  allusions  may  seem  to  need  the  service  of  the 
footnote  commentator.  That  is  indeed  high  praise  for 
occasional  material.  One  and  all  they  bubble  with 
happy  humor,  with  bright  pleasantry  and  tender  sym- 
pathy for  all  in  life  that  is  sweet  and  true  and  of  good 
report. 

His  ripest  memory  groups  about  the  three  series  of 
breakfast  table  papers,  and  after  a  long  lapse  of  time 
his  happy  return  to  that  form  in  the  papers  collected 
under  the  title  "Over  the  Teacups."  Had  these  papers 
made  their  appearance  in  any  magazine  less  famous  than 
the  Atlantic  of  those  days  they  would  have  served  to 
enrich  its  management.  As  it  was  they  were  accepted 
with  instant  appreciation,  even  among  the  best  of  the 
current  literature,  and  entered  upon  that  reception  which 
has  set  them  in  an  individual  niche  in  the  literature  of 
our  country.  They  were  brilliant.  Yes,  but  other 
papers  had  been  brilliant.  To  the  brilliancy  of  the 
breakfast  table  was  joined  pleasant  humor,  a  sen- 
timent that  breathed  health  of  soul,  the  blessing  of  humor 

43 


i8o9  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  1894 

and  such  practical  wisdom  as  seems  normal  to  the  New 
England  stock.  They  were  written  for  no  small  class 
of  readers.  Each  of  their  elements  served  to  attract 
those  to  whom  that  most  appealed,  and  once  attracted 
the  reader  welcomed  them  all.  Other  of  the  work  of 
that  Boston  group  of  which  Dr.  Holmes  was  by  no  means 
the  least  has  passed  with  the  waning  of  its  popularity 
or  the  melioration  of  the  conditions  which  called  it  into 
being.  But  the  Autocrat,  the  Professor,  the  Poet  at  the 
Breakfast  Table  have  in  no  degree  lost  their  popular- 
ity, and  that  with  no  stimulus  of  artificial  vogue. 

We  should  by  no  means  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  the 
authorship  was  but  the  incident  of  a  busy  and  beneficial 
career.  Dr.  Holmes  was  graduated  from  Harvard  be- 
fore he  had  reached  his  twenty-first  year  and  then  took 
up  the  study  of  law.  The  study  of  medicine  came  later, 
for  it  was  not  until  1836  that  he  received  his  doctorate 
in  that  art  after  several  years  in  European  hospitals. 
His  medical  attainments  were  so  marked  that  two  years 
after  he  had  received  his  degree  he  was  called  to  the  pro- 
fessorship of  Anatomy  and  Physiology  at  Dartmouth, 
a  chair  which  he  filled  until  in  1847  he  was  called  to  the 
corresponding  chair  in  the  Massachusetts  General  Hos- 
pital and  there  remained  continuously  until  age  forced 
him  to  retire  in  1882.  "With  all  this  busy  life  he  yet 
found  time  to  be  with  individual  distinction  a  man  of 
letters.  It  is  as  the  man  of  letters  of  the  fullest  type  that 
his  memory  will  live. 

44 


JOHN   CALVIN 

From  a  painting  by  Hans  Holbein 


The  Marvellous  Year 


John  Calvin 


Bancroft,  than  whom  no  historian  can  be  less  under 
the  impress  of  the  theological  interest,  has  offered  the 
suggestion  that  the  foundation  of  the  government  of  the 
United  States  rests  upon  Calvin's  theories  of  ecclesias- 
tical government  as  developed  in  the  French  Reformation 
and  in  detail  as  extended  from  church  administration  to 
the  civil  system  of  the  Helvetic  republic  in  which  he 
was  the  dominant  influence.  It  is  readily  recognizable 
that  the  parallelism  of  the  ecclesiastical  machinery  of 
sessions,  presbyteries,  synods  and  general  assemblies 
which  inheres  in  our  national  scheme  of  representative 
bodies  from  councils  through  legislatures  to  the  Congress 
is  in  its  nature  far  too  close  to  be  ascribable  to  mere  ac- 
cident. This  in  particular  adds  local  value  to  the  cel- 
ebration this  year  of  the  four  hundredth  anniversary  of 
the  great  figure  of  the  reformed  faith  in  France  and  above 
all  in  Switzerland. 

To  Calvin,  as  to  Luther,  it  was  a  holy  cause  to  work 
for  the  correction  of  the  inevitable  evils  in  the  policy 
and  in  the  faith  of  that  Catholic  church  to  whose  service 
they  had  solemnly  been  set  apart,  to  restore  to  it  the 
simplicity  of  the  apostolic  principle  at  least  so  far  as 
that  had  been  codified  and  made  of  record  by  the  earlier 
fathers.     There  the  resemblance  ceases  between  the  two 

47 


1509  John  Calvin  1564 

great  reformers,  the  leader  of  German  protestantism,  the 
father  of  French  reform.  So  far  as  is  possible  we  shall 
avoid  the  comparison  and  consider  Calvin  and  Calvinism 
apart  from  the  parallel  movement  in  the  valley  of  the 
Rhine. 

Calvin  richly  repaid  the  advantages  of  professional 
education  which  were  offered  him.  In  college  at  Paris, 
in  the  universities  which  he  frequented  in  succession  at 
Orleans  and  Bourges,  his  scholarship  in  Latin,  in  Greek 
and  in  the  law  was  of  the  most  brilliant  and  even  in 
his  student  days  justified  his  being  called  to  lecture  in 
the  place  of  absent  masters.  His  early  bent  seemed  fixed 
upon  some  such  position  in  the  world  of  thought  as  was 
filled  by  Erasmus. 

It  was  not  until  he  had  well  advanced  into  his  twenty- 
fourth  year  that  he  gave  signs  of  the  reform  work  in 
which  he  was  to  arrive  at  such  a  commanding  position. 
In  November,  1533,  he  prepared  an  address  in  the  Uni- 
versity of  Paris  upon  the  necessity  of  reforming  the 
church  to  the  model  as  set  forth  in  the  New  Testament, 
and  in  this  same  year  he  dates  his  sudden  conversion. 
He  was  expelled  from  Paris  for  his  heresy  and  entered 
upon  several  years  of  uncertain  wanderings.  After  a 
year  in  Angouleme  under  the  protection  of  Margaret  of 
Navarre  he  returned  to  Paris  but  was  again  expelled, 
was  obliged  to  flee  the  country  and  resigned  his  eccle- 
siastical benefices.  It  was  not  until  July,  1536,  that  he 
found  himself  in  Geneva  with  intent  to  pass  no  more 
than  a  single  night  and  be  on  his  way,  but  was  induced 
48 


1509  John  Calvin  1564 

to  assume  the  pastorate  of  the  struggling  evangelical 
church.  In  the  time  to  come  Geneva  was  to  be  the  scene 
of  his  greatest  triumphs,  was  to  lie  in  the  hollow  of  his 
hand;  but  Geneva  was  not  yet  ripe  for  her  master  in 
things  temporal  as  well  as  things  spiritual.  His  dis- 
cipline was  too  stern  and  he  was  banished  in  April,  1538. 
After  taking  refuge  successively  in  Bern,  Ziirich  and 
Basel  he  began  his  pastorate  in  Strassburg  in  September 
of  that  year,  there  married  and  awaited  the  recall.  In 
1541  Geneva  besought  his  return,  he  fought  political  and 
ecclesiastical  opposition  in  a  ten  years  battle  and  he 
conquered  the  city  for  his  own,  not  only  the  city  but  all 
the  faith  which  turned  to  Geneva  for  its  model.  There 
after  twenty-three  years  of  this  second  pastorate,  he  died. 
Calvinism,  straitest  of  the  sects  of  Protestantism 
though  it  is,  the  historian  finds  it  hard  to  classify  as 
heresy.  It  was  not  a  new  interpretation  of  the  Scrip- 
tures. It  was  not  an  innovation  in  the  theology  of  the 
church.  It  is  difficult  to  find  grounds  for  classifying  as 
false  doctrine  in  the  sixteenth  century  that  which  was 
accepted  as  valid  patristic  faith  in  the  fifth  century.  In 
its  essence  Calvinism  was  but  the  modern  restatement 
of  the  theology  which  obtained  acceptance  at  the  earlier 
date  under  the  incontestable  authority  of  the  sainted 
Augustine,  Bishop  of  Hippo  Regius.  To  attempt  the 
explanation  of  how  the  church  in  its  opposition  to  Cal- 
vinism reconciled  itself  with  its  earlier  and  unquestioned 
sanction  of  Augustinianism  would  introduce  the  polemic 
element.     To  present  here  even  the  briefest  syllabus 

49 


1509  John  Calvin  1564 

of  Calvin's  restoration  of  Saint  Augustine's  plan  would 
be  tedious. 

More  to  the  purpose  is  it  to  examine  what  the  progress 
of  Calvinism  has  been  in  its  course  beside  the  Lutheran 
stream. 

Four  centuries  ago  neither  men  nor  their  times  were 
ripe  for  the  idea  that  dogma  might  remain  essentially 
free  under  a  system  of  government  which  would  allow 
faith  its  utmost  absolutism  of  freedom.  We  have  al- 
ready commented  upon  the  fact  that  Calvin's  Geneva 
was  Calvin's  not  only  as  the  fiery  pastor  of  the  evangeli- 
cal faith  but  as  master  and  theocrat.  We  have  seen  that 
Bancroft  in  his  sage  view  of  the  evolution  of  republican 
institutions  has  recognized  that  our  political  system  owes 
a  great  debt  to  his  constitution  of  Geneva  and  his  church 
at  large.  Through  a  channel  possibly  less  direct  our 
institutions  owe  yet  another  debt  to  Calvin  which  falls 
not  one  whit  below  that  which  Bancroft  has  indicated. 
This  lies  in  the  solution  of  many  of  our  constitutional 
questions,  the  basic  theory  of  popular  control  of  the 
heads  of  government,  the  people's  right  to  impose  tax- 
ation through  its  own  most  popular  body  of  representa- 
tives. These  we  inherit  from  our  English  origin.  That 
we  found  them  an  inheritance  at  the  critical  point  of 
our  independence  rests  upon  the  fact  that  it  was  the 
Calvinism  of  England,  in  even  stronger  measure  the  Cal- 
vinism of  Scotland  which  rescued  the  United  Kingdom 
from  autocracy  and  fitted  it  for  the  principles  of  constitu- 
tional government  in  the  interest  of  the  people. 

50 


SAMUEL  JOHNSON 

From  a  painting  by  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds 


The  Marvelious  Year 


Samuel  Johnson 

The  father  of  the  English  dictionary,  the  great  lex- 
icographer (the  word  recalls  to  smiling  fancy  the  parting 
of  Miss  Becky  Sharp  from  scholastic  scenes  when  she 
cast  the  "dixonary"  at  the  astounded  feet  of  the  mistress 
of  Minerva  House)  is  a  man  known  intimately  to  our 
age  through  the  appreciation  of  his  friends  long  after  his 
own  efforts  have  passed  to  forgetfulness. 

We  know  Dr.  Johnson  to  have  been  an  indefatigable 
writer.  But  he  wrote  for  Grub  Street,  a  publisher's 
hack.  Literature  in  his  time  was  a  trade,  its  emoluments 
were  less  than  the  wage  of  a  competent  mechanic,  the 
man  who  practised  what  has  now  become  the  profession 
of  letters  was  the  man  who  had  failed  of  securing  a  live- 
lihood through  more  gainful  employments.  The  story 
of  such  hacks  is  the  pitiful  tale  of  debt  and  distress 
and  bailiffs  at  the  door  and  prison  with  which  the  society 
of  that  time  punished  the  crime  of  being  poor. 

We  know  that  Johnson  wrote  much,  he  made  a  style 
of  pseudo-classic  massiveness  to  which  his  name  has  been 
given  in  designation.  Yet  who  now  recalls  a  single  one 
of  these  works,  who  can  quote  from  the  product  of  his 
pen,  who  can  cite  even  so  much  as  a  single  name  ? 

It  is  only  by  the  dictionary  that  Johnson  has  impressed 
us  through  his  own  writings.     Even  that  impress  is  no 

53 


1709  Samuel  Johnson  1784 

more  than  an  entry  in  the  history  of  lexicography.  It  is 
as  with  the  English  Bible,  one  knows  that  Tyndale, 
Miles  Coverdale,  the  Bishops,  were  responsible  in  their 
succession  for  versions  of  the  Scriptures  in  the  vernacular, 
mere  names  in  literary  or  theological  history;  one  reads 
the  King  James  version.  So  in  like  manner  one  recalls 
that  Dr.  Johnson  compiled  the  first  of  the  English  dic- 
tionaries, one  uses  Webster  or  Worcester  while  awaiting 
the  completion  of  the  Oxford  Dictionary,  the  Johnson 
dictionary  remains  to  the  curious  only  as  a  monument 
of  progress,  the  first  step  in  a  great  art. 

Yet  the  Johnson  dictionary  is  still  worthy  of  careful 
study.  The  good  doctor  found  his  mother  tongue  at 
the  mercy  of  every  changing  breeze  of  fashion,  spelling 
and  definition  were  alike  uncertain,  and  etymology  was 
represented  largely  by  a  blundering  mass  of  false  anal- 
ogy. His  task  was  double.  He  had  first  to  collect  the 
language  as  it  was  known  to  him  and  to  fix  in  the  record 
that  which  hitherto  had  been  at  the  mercy  of  fleeting 
memory.  His  next  duty  was  to  exercise  a  judicial  func- 
tion upon  the  material  thus  assembled,  to  fix  standards 
of  orthography,  and  spelling  was  then  worse  confusion 
than  it  is  now;  to  correct  definition  and  to  expurgate 
the  false  sense  which  had  crept  into  many  general  usages. 
It  is  true  that  in  his  passing  of  sentence  upon  the  speech 
he  was  always  dogmatic,  frequently  artificial,  sometimes 
wholly  at  fault.  One  cannot  find  much  heart  to  blame 
him  when  it  is  recalled  that  our  own  Webster  was  equally 
stern,  equally  devoted  to  making  the  language  what  it 

54 


1709  Samuel  Johnson  1784 

should  be  rather  than  recording  what  it  was.  Early  edi- 
tions of  Webster  will  show  his  set  purpose  to  hang,  to 
draw,  to  quarter  so  inoffensive  a  word  as  bridegroom, 
in  his  first  edition  it  finds  no  entry  at  all  save  as  it  is 
pilloried  in  a  footnote  as  an  error  under  the  entry  of 
bridegoom.  Yet  despite  the  accuracy  of  his  etymology 
our  brides  have  ever  refused  to  enter  the  holy  estate 
of  matrimony  with  any  such  oddity  as  a  bridegoom. 
With  Webster,  with  Johnson  before  him,  the  genius  of 
the  speech  has  overcome  the  speculation  of  the  theorist. 
We  therefore  honor  Dr.  Johnson  for  the  beginnmg  of 
English  lexicography,  we  leave  his  dictionary  untouched 
upon  the  dusty  shelves  of  those  libraries  which  are  cem- 
eteries. 

His  works  are  forgotten,  even  the  dictionary,  yet  no 
man  of  his  time  lives  more  intimately  to  us  than  Samuel 
Johnson.  It  is  a  rare  case,  when  a  man's  work  is  dead 
the  man  himself  in  most  cases  dies  too.  Yet  Johnson 
lives.  His  life  is  not  in  what  he  did  himself  but  in  what 
his  friends  have  told  us  about  his  doings.  We  know 
Johnson  intimately,  yet  our  knowledge  lies  upon  what 
he  did  for  others  his  contemporaries. 

He  was  blessed  with  the  power  to  be  a  close  friend 
to  men  and  women  who  had  it  in  them  to  welcome  such 
friendship  and  to  return  its  treasures.  Just  how  that 
may  have  been  we  cannot  now  know  when  the  element 
of  personal  charm  has  passed  and  eluded  all  attempt 
to  fix  it  for  our  future  age.  From  the  written  record 
we  can  scarcely  understand  Johnson  in  the  warmth  of 

55 


1709  Samuel  Johnson  1784 

personal  intimacy,  we  fear  that  his  manner  might  prove 
forbidding,  his  dominance  of  his  society  not  altogether 
easy  to  bear.  But  these  are  speculations  on  which  we 
have  no  right  to  enter,  his  contemporaries  found  him  lov- 
able, and  theirs  was  the  privilege  to  hear  the  cordial 
intonation,  to  catch  the  interested  flash  of  the  eye,  to 
note  the  many  glints  of  sympathy  which  no  words  can 
ever  transmit.  He  knew  the  best  souls  of  his  time  and 
they  were  glad  to  put  him  at  the  head  of  their  society. 
There  was  Mrs.  Thrale:  how  many  dishes  of  tea  did  he 
drink  with  her  in  a  sitting?  Twenty-seven,  was  it  not? 
Yet  forgetting  this  aqueduct  tax  upon  housekeeping 
Mrs.  Thrale  loved  him.  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds'?  Almost 
cut  off  from  the  pleasure  of  social  intercourse  by  his  deaf- 
ness Sir  Joshua  could  have  none  too  much  of  Johnson. 
And  Oliver  Goldsmith?  There's  the  Irish  temperament, 
one  can  scarcely  imagine  the  bubbling  Goldsmith  bring- 
ing himself  to  tolerate  ponderous  discourse,  yet  Gold- 
smith worshipped  his  Dr.  Johnson. 

And  the  best  of  all,  Boswell.  There  was  a  man  con- 
tent to  perform  an  act  of  complete  self-obliteration.  It 
is  Boswell's  Johnson  who  lives  for  us,  yet  how  small  an 
impress  Johnson's  Boswell  has  left  of  himself  upon  his 
record  of  his  friend. 

It  is  thus  that  we  know  Johnson,  the  good  friend  of 
the  good,  his  own  work  gone  into  oblivion,  his  life  a 
household  tale  because  of  the  loving  record  of  those  be- 
tween whom  and  him  was  simple  love. 
56 


CHARLES  DARWIN 


Tlie  Man-elious  Ytar 


Charles  Darwin 

The  year  is  doubly  rich  in  Darwin  memorial,  the  hun- 
dredth anniversary  of  the  year  that  gave  him  to  the  world, 
the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  his  great  gift  to  the  world, 
"The  Origin  of  Species." 

In  glancing  over  Darwin's  early  life  the  attention  is 
caught  at  once  by  the  fact  that  he  who  was  to  effect  such 
a  revolution  in  the  world's  thought  could  in  the  world 
of  thought  upon  which  he  entered  find  so  little  for  his 
preparation  to  live.  Sent  first  to  Edinburgh  to  go  into 
training  for  medicine,  afterward  at  Cambridge  to  fit  him 
for  the  church,  he  recoiled  from  a  curriculum  that  was 
lifeless.  His  strictures  upon  the  lecture  courses  at  each 
university  serve  but  to  set  a  more  acute  accent  upon  his 
acknowledgment  of  his  great  debt  to  influences  outside 
the  curriculum  which  did  so  much  to  form  him  for  the 
great  work  in  life  upon  which  he  was  to  enter,  the  sym- 
pathetic intercourse  with  naturalists,  curators,  even  with 
a  negro  bird  stuffer  at  Edinburgh. 

Thus  passing  unharmed  through  the  dead  routine  of 
two  great  seats  of  learning,  gathering  great  food  from 
sources  wholly  outside  the  monotonous  level  of  daily 
task,  he  began  to  study  only  when  he  accompanied  Cap- 
tain Fitzroy  in  the  voyage  of  the  Beagle^  a  ship  and  a 
commander  which  live  in  intellectual  memory  only  by 

59 


i8o9  Charles  Darwin  1882 

reason  of  the  young  student  who  held  a  position  so  sub- 
ordinate. That  voyage  was  his  term  of  study;  botany, 
zoology,  geology,  the  great  trivium  of  life  history,  were 
his  pursuit  in  the  field.  How  close  were  his  powers  of 
,  observation  in  the  collection  of  material,  how  sedulous 
were  his  methods  of  research,  these  are  abundantly  illus- 
trated in  his  "Monograph  on  the  Cirripedia,"  the  embodi- 
ment of  the  results  of  eight  years  of  unremitting  toil. 

When  Darwin  entered  upon  his  life  work  there  was  a 
sacred  canon  in  systematic  biology.  The  Species  was 
godgiven,  immutable,  the  unchanging  unit  of  all  life. 
It  had  passed  from  memory  that  Species  was  of  human 
invention,  it  had  become  fetish,  god.  Men  postulated, 
then  believed  as  proved,  better  yet  held  as  an  article 
of  faith  which  transcends  proof,  that  in  certain  forms  of 
plants  and  animals  there  were  characters  fixed  beyond 
the  power  of  change,  that  transmutation  from  one  to  the 
other  was  forever  prohibited,  that  they  were  species  ab- 
solutely fixed  and  unchangeable.  Within  the  limits  of 
any  one  of  these  fixed  species  certain  minor  modifica- 
tions were  held  possible,  there  might,  therefore,  be  vari- 
eties of  the  species.  But  the  species  itself  was  a  sacred 
unit.  This  was  orthodox  biology,  as  such  it  was  Dar- 
win's first  creed. 

Heresy,  however,  had  arisen.  Lamarck  had  felt 
doubt  as  to  the  immutability  of  this  sacred  species,  he 
had  already  ventured  expression  of  his  opinion  that  trans- 
mutation of  species  might  take  place,  and  if  such  should 
prove  to  be  fact  that  such  transmutation  was  chiefly  due 
60 


i8o9  Charles  Darwin  1882 

to  two  influences,  the  environment,  understanding 
thereby  the  totality  of  surrounding  external  circumstan- 
ces ;  and  the  effect  of  the  use  and  disuse  of  parts.  These 
i  two  influences  have  passed  into  record  as  the  Lamarckian 
factors  of  evolution. 

Led  to  the  same  doubt  as  to  fixity  of  species  Darwin 
found  the  principal  causes  of  mutability  to  lie  in  natural 
selection  and  sexual  selection,  to  which  has  been  assigned 
the  designation  of  the  Darwinian  factors  of  evolution. 
Of  the  former  of  these  factors  his  own  definition  stands 
as  a  classic.  "This  preservation  of  favorable  individual 
differences  and  variations,  and  the  destruction  of  those 
which  are  injurious,  I  have  called  Natural  Selection,  or 
Survival  of  the  Fittest." 

When  the  "Origin  of  Species"  was  produced  a  half 
century  ago,  strangely  and  generously  paralleled  by  the 
similar  work  of  Alfred  Russel  Wallace,  the  whole  study 
of  biology  was  put  upon  a  new  basis.  One  can  but  won- 
der at  the  ease  with  which  the  revolution  was  accom- 
plished, yet  the  wonder  vanishes  at  sight  of  the  com- 
pelling quality  of  the  proof  and  the  evidence  upon  which 
it  is  based. 

Opposition  was  to  develop,  but  it  was  to  come  from 
a  source  external  to  the  field  of  biological  science.  It 
was  impossible  for  Darwin  to  stop  short  of  the  extension 
of  his  discovery  to  the  species  which  stands  at  the  summit 
of  life.  The  principles  set  forth  in  the  study  of  the 
variations  whereby  species  under  certain  conditions  pass 
slowly  and  insensibly  into  other  species  must  be  vital 

61 


i8o9  Charles  Darwin  1882 

in  the  study  of  the  man  species.  In  1871  "The  Descent 
of  Man"  was  published  and  the  storm  broke  from  the 
theological  quarter.  In  the  earlier  work  the  whole 
theory  of  special  creation  had  been  wiped  out  of  exist- 
ence, yet  nowhere  had  such  a  result  been  set  forth  in  so 
many  words  and  in  the  sluggishness  which  has  ever  char- 
acterized the  attitude  of  theology  to  science  the  older 
branch  of  learning  had  failed  to  discover  the  upheaval 
which  had  taken  place.  That  storm  broke  in  fury,  the 
battle  raged  for  years  over  man  held  to  be  the  one  and 
sacred  exception  to  the  law  of  nature.  No  more  dig- 
nified form  can  be  conceived  than  that  of  Darwin,  the 
weaker  of  his  adherents  temporizing,  popular  indigna- 
tion brought  to  bear  upon  him,  yet  remaining  a  steadfast 
soul  proving  point  after  point  with  calm  precision. 

Years  have  gone  by  since  the  world  of  thought  was  con- 
vulsed with  that  great  conflict.  The  virulence  of  the 
attack  was  so  great  that  the  principles  which  Darwin 
upheld  were  set  backward.  New  investigators  were  led 
to  present  modifications  which  with  more  or  less  adroit- 
ness might  escape  the  force  of  the  attack.  Other  students 
have  propounded  other  theories  designed  to  supplant  the 
basic  principles  which  Darwin  presented  and  for  which 
he  suffered.  But  time  has  been  a  juster  judge.  For  a 
time  discredited,  yet  far  less  than  was  the  popular  esti- 
mate, the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  what  may  well  be  called 
Darwinism  has  seen  his  principles  restored  to  their  po- 
sition of  preeminence,  the  basis  of  modern  scientific 
thought  and  method. 
62 


ALFRED.  LORD  TENNYSON 


The  Marvellous  Year 


Alfred,  Lord  Tennyson 

A  court  must  of  necessity  be  middle  class,  middle  class 
with  embroidery.  The  greater  the  court  the  thicker  the 
embroidery.     Therein  lies  the  difference  between  courts. 

What  a  court  may  do  for  poetry  the  epic  will  show. 
Vivid,  rude,  instinct  with  life  and  its  interests  the 
Homeric  poems  were  the  songs  of  a  people,  the  songs 
sung  to  interested  folk  by  wandering  rhapsodists.  Pro- 
vided the  narrative  caught  and  held  their  attention  the 
hearers  were  willing  to  overlook  the  crudeness  of  manner. 
Only  in  a  court,  embroidered  middle  class,  could  Vergil 
make  the  epic  a  work  of  art,  finely  polished,  the  delight 
of  a  critical  culture.  In  his  capable  hands,  under  the 
fostering  warmth  of  the  court  of  Augustus,  the  epic  be- 
came an  exercise  of  intellectual  agility,  a  thing  fine  pol- 
ished, no  longer  of  the  people,  a  work  of  art. 

For  ages  the  English  folk  had  had  its  store  of  song, 
the  song  of  the  wandering  gleeman.  To  the  laity  it 
passed  for  history  of  England  in  its  yet  glorious  past. 
For  such  hedgerow  auditors  was  no  thought  of  historical 
criticism.  To  them  Robin  Hood  was  as  real  as  Richard 
the  King,  not  until  later  times  was  he  made  an  Earl. 
The  glory  of  Britain  was  bound  up  in  the  tales  of  Arthur 
and  the  Round  Table,  chronology  all  uncertain  but  exist- 

65 


i8o9  Alfred,  Lord  Tennyson  1892 

ence  sure.  Sir  Launcelot,  Sir  Galahad,  Modred,  Guene- 
vere,  Merlin,  these  were  real.  \'ivid,  they  were  crude; 
they  were  fitted  to  the  popular  mind  which  absorbed  them 
with  breathless  interest. 

From  such  store  Tennyson  drew  the  material  which 
for  the  court  he  graced  he  handled  with  Vergilian  skill 
and  finish.  He  was  the  Vergil  of  a  court  of  empire 
greater  than  Augustus  ever  knew,  of  better  morals  per- 
haps, for  morals  change  with  the  passing  of  the  ages,  cer- 
tainly middle  class  because  a  court,  not  inferior  in  em- 
broidery. 

Poetry  was  not  dead  in  England  when  Tennyson 
served  his  court.  The  great  voice  of  life,  its  joys,  its 
woes,  broke  into  rhythmic  expression,  yet  the  court  had 
its  \'ergil.  Always  accurate,  always  sure  never  to  offend, 
the  Laureate  year  in  and  year  out  might  be  counted  on 
to  render  his  due  meed  of  ode  and  song  to  throne  and 
England's  glory.  That  pipe  of  sherry  must  be  earned 
before  it  could  be  broached. 

We  cannot  avoid  the  Vergilianism  of  Tennyson,  the 
poet  through  long  years  of  a  court  still  longer  yeared. 
It  shows  itself  in  his  close  adhesion  to  that  life  principle 
which  the  English  call  good  form.  It  shows  itself  in  the 
painful  finish  of  his  verse.  Poetry  with  him  is  not  the 
amusement  of  the  hedgerow  throng  to  be  recompensed  by 
a  toss  of  ale  or  coin  thrown  ungrudgingly  into  the  glee- 
man's  hat,  it  is  art  to  be  made  as  trig  and  trim  in  vesture 
as  the  three  feathers  without  which  England's  woman- 
kind may  not  pass  curtseying  before  the  throne.  In 
66  ' 


i8o9  Alfred,  Lord  Tennyson  1892 

either  case  Gold  Stick  in  Waiting  stands  as  constable  of 
the  proprieties. 

To  some  men  such  a  position  would  be  stifling.  Ten- 
nyson fitted  the  place  just  as  the  post  at  court  fitted  him, 
an  essential  design  in  the  pattern  of  the  embroidery. 
From  his  earliest  efforts  with  the  still  unfamiliar  lyre  we 
find  him  in  possession  of  that  fineness  of  taste,  that  es- 
sence of  good  breeding  which  later  was  to  serve  as  war- 
rant to  the  court  that  he  would  ever  be  safe,  that  his  part 
in  embroidered  pageant  would  always  be  in  harmony  with 
the  general  design.  Outside  the  precincts  of  the  court 
other  poets  might  break  through  the  blanket  of  the  com- 
monplace, they  might  cry  in  numbers  sentiments  that 
were  either  not  understood  or  were  considered  anything 
but  mannerly.  Tennyson,  no.  He  was  Laureate,  an 
officer  of  the  court,  a  tried  and  trusted  modulator  of  the 
oat,  an  English  Vergil  prepared  to  sing  the  praise  of  all 
that  bore  official  approval,  and  like  Vergil  grateful.  Yet 
if  the  muse  is  to  enter  the  service  of  a  court  no  court  was 
ever  better  served  with  its  dish  of  verse.  There  is  no 
blemish  on  the  polish  of  Tennyson's  verse,  no  point  of 
good  form  is  omitted,  the  habiliments  are  just  such  as 
ceremonial  prescribes  shall  appear  in  the  royal  drawing- 
room. 

The  singer  for  a  court  sings  for  a  larger  audience,  an 
audience  whose  approval  is  assured  under  the  most  pos- 
itive guarantees.  Thus  Tennyson  was  the  poet  of  all 
that  is  respectable  in  England,  of  all  throughout  the 
English  speaking  world  that  keeps  a  gig.     A  great  audi- 

67 


i809  Alfred,  Lord  Tennyson  1892 

ence,  an  obedient  audience,  one  prompt  to  echo  in  its 
applause  the  approval  from  above.  To  be  a  poet  is 
much,  to  be  a  praised  poet  is  more. 

Yet  one  wonders  what  would  have  been  made  of  the 
poetical  life  of  Tennyson  had  his  lines  been  cast  in  other 
places;  if  he  had  failed  of  appointment  as  a  court  pur- 
veyor, if  he  had  sung  for  a  smaller  audience  and  a  more 
appreciative  because  more  critical. 

Rarely,  very  rarely  did  he  venture  away  from  the 
swinging  of  the  censer.  His  "Northern  Farmer"  stands 
almost  alone.  It  is  Hodge,  and  what  has  Hodge  to  do 
with  Queens  and  belted  Earls  save  only  to  be  pictur- 
esque in  his  smock  by  the  wayside.  The  "Northern 
Farmer"  was  a  timid  essay  in  another  field  of  life,  a 
life  grimy  handed  and  creaking  in  the  joints,  a  life  in 
which  Tennyson  saw  little  and  gave  to  others  to  see 
still  less.  But  in  his  formal  work  there  is  the  bursting 
through  of  feeling  that  he  could  not  quite  smooth  out, 
there  are  spots  in  which  the  poetical  fire  burns  with  an 
open  flame,  flickering  in  the  wind,  but  hotter  by  many 
degrees  than  the  radiance  which  filtered  from  the 
candelabras  of  the  presence  room.  It  is  a  Tantalus  task 
to  pick  them  out,  but  ever  and  anon  they  come  upon  the 
appreciation  with  assurance  that  the  Laureate  had  it  in 
him  to  be  poet  as  well. 

But  then,  there  was  always  the  civil  list  and  that  pipe 
of  sherry  and  those  few  pounds  of  annual  fee.     Our 
Vergils  are  not  badly  placed. 
68 


FRANCES  ANNE    KEMBLE 


Thf  Marvellous  Year 


Fanny  Kemble 

In  the  last  two  centuries  the  annals  of  the  English 
stage  have  recorded  few  names  more  distinguished  than 
that  of  any  one  of  the  Kembles  chosen  at  large,  and  in  the 
course  of  three  generations  the  choice  is  a  wide  one. 
Certainly  no  family  has  attained  greater  distinction. 

We  must  go  back  to  the  grandfather  to  begin  to  orient 
ourselves  for  the  proper  appreciation  of  the  Kembles. 
The  founder  of  the  house,  for  to  the  aristocracy  of  the- 
atrical art  will  surely  be  permitted  the  phrase  adopted 
by  the  aristocracy  of  mere  place,  the  first  of  the  Kembles 
was  Roger,  actor  and  manager.  It  is  echoed  from  the 
early  eighteenth  century  that  he  was  a  good  actor,  but 
whatever  fame  he  may  have  enjoyed  is  dimmed  by  the 
greater  radiance  of  his  children's  renown.  There  were 
many  of  these  children,  twelve  of  them,  five  of  them  on 
the  stage,  two  of  the  girls,  three  of  the  boys.  One  of 
each  came  to  the  height  of  renown,  names  which  are  yet 
on  the  theatrical  roll  of  fame,  Mrs.  Siddons  the  oldest 
of  the  family,  and  John  Philip  Kemble,  the  "great  Kem- 
ble," the  oldest  of  the  sons. 

As  was  the  case  with  the  grandfather  so  was  Fanny's 
father  set  into  the  background  by  the  higher  fame  of  his 
two  great  elders.     Yet  Charles  Kemble,  the  eleventh 

71 


i8o9  Fr.'Vnces  Anne  Kemble  1893 

child  of  Roger,  was  held  by  his  contemporaries  to  be  no 
mean  actor.  Unfortunately  his  leaning  was  toward  the 
comic  roles  and  the  glories  of  that  age  were  for  the  tragic 
parts.  Yet  we  know  that  he  made  great  successes  of 
Benedick,  Petruchio  and  Charles  Surface.  His  career 
was  at  least  sufficiently  creditable  to  secure  for  him  the 
post  of  examiner  of  plays,  in  which  he  is  expressly  said 
to  have  exercised  a  wise  discretion  and  to  have  shown 
a  fine  sense  of  what  was  best  suited  to  the  English  public. 
His  daughter,  Frances  Anne  Kemble,  whom  the  world 
refuses  to  remember  save  under  the  affectionate  dimin- 
utive of  Fanny,  was  born  to  the  family  tradition  and  to 
the  family  talent.  To  any  Kemble,  a  name  to  conjure 
with  a  hundred  years  ago,  all  avenues  to  theatrical  prog- 
ress were  open,  and  it  is  with  no  surprise  that  we  find 
her  before  her  twentieth  birthday  making  her  appearance 
at  Covent  Garden  as  Juliet  to  her  father's  Romeo.  Her 
audience  was  sympathetic  from  the  start,  they  were  under 
the  dominance  of  the  Kemble  tradition.  It  was  not  long 
before  the  new  Kemble  was  welcomed  for  herself,  in 
her  earliest  scenes  she  won  her  audiences  to  a  cordial  ap- 
preciation of  her  own  charm,  of  her  own  power.  Wel- 
comed as  a  new  Kemble  upon  the  boards  her  first  per- 
formance made  her  Fanny  to  her  public.  There  was  no 
question  of  her  talent,  that  was  at  once  acknowledged. 
Other  Kembles  had  swayed  their  audiences  by  power, 
Fanny  won  them  by  her  sweetness.  She  was  not  to  re- 
place Mrs.  Siddons  or  her  other  distinguished  aunt  Eliz- 
abeth, Mrs.  Whitlock.     She  was  from  the  first  a  new  and 

72 


i8o9  Frances  Anne  Kemble  1893 

unfamiliar  manifestation  of  Kemble  art,  yet  none  the  less 
welcome  by  reason  of  the  dissimilarity,  none  the  less 
successful  through  avoiding  the  comparison  that  would 
otherwise  have  been  inevitable. 

Upon  her  first  success  in  the  greatest  of  Shakespeare's 
heroines  followed  with  no  diminution  of  art  in  portrayal, 
with  no  loss  of  the  popular  approval  which  that  art 
earned  for  her,  equal  successes  in  Portia,  Julia  in  "The 
Hunchback,"  Bianca,  Belvidera  and  Lady  Teazle.  For 
three  years  on  end  she  was  the  idol  of  the  London  stage. 

Now  we  come  to  her  American  career  beginning  in 
1832.  Its  promise  was  of  the  brightest,  its  fulfilment 
was  misery.  Her  London  reputation  had  gone  before 
her  overseas,  a  public  was  already  awaiting  her  on  the 
western  shore  of  the  Atlantic.  For  two  years  she  en- 
joyed a  complete  triumph,  New  York  and  Philadelphia 
could  not  view  her  other  than  London  had  done,  would 
not  if  they  could.  At  the  height  of  her  success  she  gave 
up  the  stage  in  answer  to  what  she  believed  a  happier 
call.  In  1834  she  became  the  wife  of  Pierce  Butler  and 
found  a  home  on  his  plantation  in  Georgia.  Unfortun- 
ately the  home  proved  unhappy,  the  marriage  failed  of 
its  early  promise,  we  need  not  now  recall  the  difficulties 
which  wrecked  the  love  on  the  plantation,  suffice  it  to 
say  that  after  fourteen  years  they  were  divorced  in  1848. 

Fanny  Kemble,  for  she  at  once  reverted  to  the  name 
which  she  had  made  famous,  did  not  return  to  the  stage. 
Some  have  thought  that  her  possession  of  the  family  tal- 
ent for  the  stage  was  not  wholly  inspired  by  the  family 

73 


i8o9  FRy\NCES  Anne  Kemble  1893 

passion  which  had  kept  others  of  the  family  going  ever 
on  from  success  to  success.  Be  that  as  it  may  she  avoided 
in  her  next  venture  in  life  the  harder  work  of  the  theatre 
and  renewed  her  acquaintance  with  her  public  with  read- 
ings from  Shakespeare,  dramatic  recitations  rather.  In 
the  constitution  of  American  society  as  it  then  was,  the 
theatre  to  many  and  those  not  the  least  influential  being 
a  place  to  be  shunned,  this  career  extended  her  popular- 
ity, for  she  reached  a  yet  wider  audience.  Readings 
from  Shakespeare  passed  innocuously  as  literature,  the 
same  Shakespeare  on  the  boards  might  be  sin.  Under 
these  conditions  she  found  a  yet  wider  host  of  friends 
and  a  second  time  repeated  her  earlier  success. 

In  i860  the  call  of  home  became  strong.  She  had  been 
almost  a  third  of  a  century  in  America  but  England  was 
drawing  her.  After  that  date  she  spent  most  of  her  life 
in  her  girlhood  home  and  after  1877  returned  no  more 
to  the  land  which  so  warmly  had  adopted  her  and  had 
given  such  cordial  sympathy  in  her  sorrows. 

Fanny  Kemble  did  not  rest  wholly  content  with  the 
portrayal  of  the  thought  of  others.  When  she  was  but 
seventeen  she  had  written  a  play,  "Francis  the  First" 
and  it  was  produced  in  London,  but  with  no  great  suc- 
cess. She  wrote  much  verse,  as  did  others  of  her  time, 
and  some  of  it  was  published  in  now  forgotten  volumes. 
The  student  of  the  past  still  finds  interest  in  her  "Journal 
of  a  Residence  in  America"  written  shortly  after  her  mar- 
riage, and  the  "Residence  on  a  Georgia  Plantation." 

74 


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FRAN2  JOSEPH    HAYDN 


The  Mari^ilous  Year 


Franz  Joseph  Haydn 

The  year  which  saw  the  birth  of  Mendelssohn  regis- 
tered the  death  of  the  old  master  whom  he  was  in  time 
to  supplant  in  the  world  of  music.  Nothing  could  be 
more  dissimilar  than  the  conditions  under  which  the  two 
men  entered  upon  life,  the  two  masters  upon  their  art. 
The  younger  became  the  heir  of  a  fecund  century  of 
music,  Haydn  had  almost  to  create  that  art  for  himself. 
Mendelssohn  was  born  to  ease,  to  cultivated  society,  to 
every  advantage;  Haydn  at  his  birth  at  Rohrau,  Austria, 
March  31,  1732,  was  the  son  of  a  wheelwright,  and  the 
home  of  a  mechanic  in  an  obscure  town  in  those  days 
was  the  abode  of  poverty,  of  want.  But  in  the  home  of 
the  poor  wheelright  was  the  blessing  of  music,  his  parents 
knew  at  least  enough  to  know  that  their  child  had  talent. 

Because  Haydn  was  a  master  it  will  not  be  tedious  to 
sketch  the  hardships  of  the  course  by  which  he  rose  to  the 
command  of  his  art.  At  the  age  of  five  he  passed  under 
the  care  of  a  distant  relative,  the  schoolmaster  of  Hain- 
burg,  who  directed  his  education  for  the  next  three  years. 
In  this  brief  period  of  education  music  held  an  important 
place,  the  boy  was  taught  in  the  elements,  his  voice  was 
cultivated,  he  learned  the  violin  and  other  instruments, 

77 


1732  Franz  Joseph  Haydn  1809 

among  them  the  drum,  of  which  it  is  said  he  was  parti- 
cularly fond. 

At  eight  he  was  taken  into  the  cathedral  of  St.  Stephen 
at  Vienna  as  choir  boy,  learning  from  example,  forever 
practicing  to  improve  himself,  even  composing  a  mass 
at  thirteen  which  moved  his  kapellmeister,  Reuter,  to 
scorn.  When  his  voice  changed  he  was  discharged  from 
the  cathedral  choir  penniless  and  with  nowhere  to  turn. 
To  the  charity  of  a  poor  barber  he  owed  his  garret  bed 
and  access  to  a  decrepit  harpsichord;  lessons  and  odd 
employment  with  the  violin  and  organ  enabled  him  to 
study  yet  further  in  his  art  until  he  had  mastered  Bach's 
style  and  had  felt  the  influence  of  Sammartini.  For  the 
sake  of  his  music  he  engaged  with  Porpora  as  a  menial, 
a  body  servant;  it  remains  a  credit  to  that  composer  that 
he  soon  admitted  his  valet  to  the  fellowship  of  their  com- 
mon art,  made  him  his  accompanist,  his  companion,  his 
pupil. 

The  days  of  hardship,  the  days  of  the  struggle  for  the 
daily  bread  and  for  the  knowledge  of  music,  came  to  an 
end  in  Haydn's  twenty-eighth  year  when  he  was  ap- 
pointed kapellmeister  by  Prince  Esterhazy,  a  post  which 
he  held  from  1760  until  1790,  in  a  warm  friendship  of 
art  sympathy  which  endured  until  the  death  of  the 
Prince.  To  this  calm  refuge  we  owe  the  150  composi- 
tions for  the  violoncello,  since  his  patron  was  an  amateur 
of  that  instrument  and  possessed  no  mean  ability.  In 
78 


1732  Franz  Joseph  Haydn  1809 

this  reposeful  period  of  prosperity  must  be  placed  his 
luckless  marriage.  He  married  the  sister  of  the  poor 
barber  who  had  opened  the  garret  to  the  ruined  chorister. 
It  was  unhappy,  it  was  no  union.  Haydn's  generosity 
to  his  torment  was  such  that  in  their  separation  he  crip- 
pled his  financial  resources;  fortunately  his  art  was  safe 
above  these  trials. 

During  these  thirty  creative  years  he  remained  in  the 
Esterhazy  palace  closely  attentive  to  his  duties.  His 
fame,  none  the  less,  had  extended  far  beyond  Vienna 
and  Austria,  it  had  reached  so  far  as  England.  The  first 
opportunity  afforded  the  master  to  discover  what  warmth 
of  appreciation  was  awaiting  him  in  the  wider  world  of 
music  was  when  he  went  to  England  in  1790  on  the  in- 
vitation of  his  admirers.  His  reception  in  the  English 
capital  was  enthusiastic,  it  was  profitable  as  well,  a  mat- 
ter of  great  concern  since  his  accumulations  in  his  thirty 
years  of  ease  were  no  more  than  $5,000. 

At  the  period  of  his  English  visits  (he  returned  to  Lon- 
don a  second  time  in  1795)  he  turned  his  attention  to 
vocal  music.  Thitherto  he  had  composed  only  for  the 
single  instrument,  for  the  orchestra  and  for  the  quartet 
of  strings,  of  which  form  of  expression  he  was  the  father 
and  for  which  he  wrote  83  compositions.  So  great  was 
his  mastery  of  instrumental  music  that  he  is  credited  with 
having  done  more  for  that  art  than  any  hundred  of  those 
who  had  gone  before  him.     The  classic  form  of  the  sym- 

79 


1732  Franz  Joseph  Haydn  1809 

phony  we  owe  to  him  as  well;  he  established  in  that  mode 
the  principle  of  lucidity  of  ideas,  of  consistent  symmetry 
in  their  development  and  treatment  accompanied  with 
the  utmost  finish  of  phrasing.  He  wrote  no  less  than 
twelve  symphonies  for  his  London  reception,  and  these 
are  counted  among  his  highest  productions,  and  his  pro- 
ductions in  this  mode  number  no  less  than  118  in  the 
total  of  more  than  800  of  his  complete  works. 

He  had  passed  his  sixtieth  year  when  he  first  essayed 
the  oratorio  and  found  that  upon  the  human  voice  he 
could  play  as  brilliantly  as  upon  the  other  instruments 
of  music  to  which  he  had  devoted  his  life.  Neither  in 
"The  Seasons"  nor  in  "The  Creation"  is  there  anything 
to  indicate  that  he  was  essaying  a  new  mode  of  expres- 
sion, his  perfection  of  method  gave  full  vent  to  the  free 
expression  of  the  joyousness  of  his  nature.  Few  of  his 
works  appear  on  modern  programmes,  but  "The  Crea- 
tion" has  a  lasting  freshness  that  finds  for  it  entrance 
into  the  greater  music  festivals. 

Haydn  fairly  dominated  the  music  of  Great  Britain 
for  the  first  third  of  the  nineteenth  century.  He  was  the 
standard.  Success  of  the  younger  composers  was  meas- 
ured by  their  fidelity  to  the  Haydn  method,  even  imita- 
tion was  counted  better  than  the  attempt  to  depart  from 
those  accepted  ideas  of  treatment.  It  was  not  until 
Mendelssohn  appeared  upon  the  scene  with  his  youthful 
freshness  that  the  classical  severity  began  to  yield  to  sim- 
pler even  though  more  florid  art. 
80 


NIKOLAI  VASILIEVITCH   GOGOL 


The  Marvellous  Year 


Nikolai  Vasilievitch  Gogol 

From  the  necessities  of  art  criticism  has  arisen  a  specific 
locution  as  to  manner,  the  earlier  manner  of  a  worker, 
his  later  manner.  Such  an  expression  but  scantily  does 
justice  to  Gogol.  The  change  in  him  was  more  than 
that  of  mere  manner,  it  amounts  to  a  complete  reversal 
of  personality,  he  was  two  men  wholly  distinct.  In  six 
years  in  his  third  decade  he  became  a  bitter  partisan  of 
absolutism  and  the  autocracy  from  which  Russia  has  not 
yet  emerged,  in  his  life  a  gloomy  ascetic,  in  his  religion 
a  dark  mystic  and  a  fanatic.  Yet  these  six  years, 
1842-48,  in  which  the  change  registered  itself  were  passed 
in  the  free  air  of  Italy  and  followed  immediately  upon 
the  production  of  his  masterpiece  of  "Chichagov,  or  the 
Dead  Souls."  With  this  gloomy  Gogol  we  shall  con- 
cern ourselves  not  at  all. 

In  his  earlier  years  he  was  the  hope  of  Russia,  the 
voice  of  freedom  in  the  autocracy,  the  unsparing  satirist 
of  corruption,  the  promise  of  far  better  things  to  come. 
More  than  that  he  was  one  of  the  earliest  as  he  was 
among  the  greatest  of  those  whose  fame  passed  the  Cos- 
sack-vexed frontier  and  spread  to  western  Europe  the 
news  that  in  the  dulness  of  Russia  a  national  literature 
was  awaking  that  was  worthy  to  take  its  place  among 

83 


i8o9  Nikolai  Vasilievitch  Gogol  1852 

the  great  achievements  of  mankind.  He  was  the  idol 
of  young  Russia,  the  inspired  leader  of  all  bright  and 
brave  minds  who  had  the  hardihood  to  allow  free  vent 
to  the  enthusiasms  of  youth. 

Before  his  majority  he  was  admitted  to  the  lower  orders 
of  the  Chinovnik,  that  engine  of  bureaucracy  which  then 
as  now  was  corrupt  and  inefficient,  a  dull  barrier  between 
the  enlightenment  of  the  sovereign  and  the  enfranchise- 
ment of  the  people.  Such  an  appointment  must  be  criti- 
cal to  a  soul  with  aspirations.  Gogol  might  have  yielded 
to  the  iron  system,  might  have  accepted  the  lethargy  of  a 
routine  of  fixed  plunder  and  in  time  might  have  risen  to 
the  dull  eminence  of  a  pillaged  competence,  rank  and  the 
glittering  bauble  of  decorations.  But  such  was  not  for 
him,  he  could  not  suffer  himself  to  become  a  mere  unit  in 
such  a  machine,  he  was  wholly  useless  as  a  Government 
clerk  and  his  resignation  after  a  short  experiment  was 
undoubtedly  as  satisfactory  to  his  superiors  as  it  was  en- 
franchising to  him. 

It  came  to  pass  that  he  found  his  true  vocation  in 
his  twenty-first  year,  when  his  powers  of  expression  lifted 
him  away  from  the  redtape  routine.  It  was  then  that 
he  published  in  a  literary  magazine  the  first  of  those 
sketches  of  Russian  life  away  from  the  great  towns  which 
became  in  time  the  volume  of  "Evenings  on  a  Farm  near 
Dikanka."  The  first  of  these  stories  showed  his  mastery 
of  expression,  for  the  style  was  finished  and  strong,  and 
its  reception  to  favor  was  immediate.  Even  this  early 
84 


i8o9  Nikolai  Vasilievitch  Gogol  1852 

work  was  clear  realism,  he  reported  what  he  saw  in  the 
unchanging  routine  of  old  Slavonic  life,  what  any  one 
might  see  who  had  eyes  wherewith  to  see;  but  he  saw 
far  deeper,  his  art  lay  in  presenting  convincingly  the 
hidden  springs,  the  underlying  motives,  the  soul  of  that 
Russian  life,  dull  and  dead  though  it  might  seem  at  its 
homeliest,  rude  and  savage  when  exploded  into  ac- 
tion. Young  as  he  was  and  wholly  unknown  this  work 
lifted  him  to  the  first  rank  of  Russian  literary  creation. 

It  was  natural  that  his  brilliant  success  in  the  record 
of  Slavonic  life  should  fix  his  attentions  upon  the  graver 
expansion  of  the  same  material,  which  he  and  his  admir- 
ers felt  he  knew  so  well  and  had  handled  with  such  ex- 
cellence. He  projected  a  history  of  Little  Russia  on  a 
large  scale  of  philosophical  inquiry,  he  blocked  out  his 
plans  and  collected  the  material.  Such  a  work  of  re- 
search was  beyond  the  means  of  a  young  man  just  engag- 
ing life  and  he  was  forced  to  enter  upon  the  weary, 
and  as  it  proved  unsuccessful,  search  for  patronage  which 
would  enable  him  to  devote  all  his  energies  to  his  project. 
Failing  in  this  he  was  obliged  to  relinquish  his  graver 
work. 

But  as  a  by-product  of  this  search  for  a  patron  he  was 
appointed  adjunct  professor  in  the  chair  of  history  of  the 
University  of  St.  Petersburg.  He  could  not  teach  and 
his  professorship  was  wholly  useless  save  as  providing 
him  a  living.  He  severed  his  connection  with  the  uni- 
versity after  a  few  vain  years.     Yet  the  years  had  not 

85 


i8o9  Nikolai  Vasilievitch  Gogol  1852 

been  vain  for  his  art,  for  in  that  period  he  had  written 
his  "Arabesques,"  his  "Taras  Bulba"  and  a  large  number 
of  smaller  works,  all  works  of  realism  saturated  with 
cynic  humor  and  laughing  satire  such  as  possess  a  partic- 
ular appeal  to  the  Russian  character. 

It  was  at  this  period  that  he  produced  his  comedy  of 
"Revizor,"  an  instant  success  and  not  entirely  vanished 
from  the  stage  to-day  outside  of  Russia.  Gogol  had  not 
forgotten  his  first  essay  in  the  government  service,  he 
had  observed  shrewdly  and  had  stored  his  ready  mind 
with  abundance  of  material  out  of  which  to  form  this 
comedy  of  official  manners.  Revizor  is  a  government  in- 
spector, a  stupid  yet  rapacious  specimen  of  his  class. 
The  piece  is  too  bitter  for  comedy,  it  was  a  scathing  satire 
upon  the  corruption  of  the  ruling  class,  a  dashing  expos- 
ure of  its  inefficiency  in  all  but  peculation. 

Next  came,  in  1842,  his  masterpiece,  "Chichagov," 
an  impassioned  presentation  of  the  evils  of  serfdom  and 
an  inspired  plea  for  its  abolition.  With  telling  force  he 
uses  the  weapon  of  ridicule,  savage  ridicule  and  at  times 
broad  farce,  but  he  knew  thoroughly  the  people  for  whom 
he  was  writing  and  could  forge  the  most  potent  blade 
against  them. 

At  the  pinnacle  of  his  success  he  left  Russia  for  a  resi- 
dence in  Italy  and  there  underwent  the  change  which  de- 
stroyed his  art  and  in  a  few  brief  years  returned  him  the 
reactionary,  the  Jerusalem  pilgrim,  the  dark  fanatic. 
86 


WILLIAM    EWART   GLADSTONE 


Tht  Marvellous  Year 


William  Ewart  Gladstone 

Tt  is  more  than  a  little  the  irony  of  life  that  the  pro- 
foundest  successes  of  any  statesman  should  lie  in  the 
brilliancy  of  his  execution  of  measures  which  he  at  first 
opposed  and  finally  was  obliged  to  accept  when  forced 
upon  him  by  the  act  of  the  party  in  opposition. 

By  birth  and  tradition  as  well  as  by  education  Glad- 
stone belonged  to  that  long  dominant  party  of  English 
administration  which  saw  the  hope  of  the  nation  in  the 
continuance  of  government  by  an  aristocracy.  When 
he  was  making  ready  for  his  public  career  his  hopes  of 
preferment,  of  successful  use  of  his  great  powers,  lay 
in  the  continuance  of  that  system  which  had  seemed  to 
England  the  only  proper  representation,  the  dominance 
of  the  great  families  and  its  necessary  concomitant  of 
the  rotten  boroughs.  Yet  the  young  Tory  was  to  become 
the  great  Liberal,  the  mainspring  of  popular  government 
in  Great  Britain,  even  to  make  some  progress  in  extend- 
ing that  principle  to  the  United  Kingdom. 

It  was  not  Gladstone's  ideal  to  mass  Great  Britain  and 
her  colonies  under  the  imperial  idea.  It  was  Disraeli 
who  put  upon  the  head  of  his  royal  mistress  the  imperial 
crown  and  gave  to  her  the  new  title  of  Kaisar-i-Hind. 
Yet  it  was  Gladstone  upon  whom  fell  the  task  of  com- 
pacting that  empire,  of  establishing  its  system  of  admin- 

89 


i8o9  William  Ewart  Gladstone  1898 

istration,  of  bringing  into  real  existence  that  which  his 
great  rival  had  forced  upon  him  as  little  more  than  a 
name.  In  such  form  as  the  British  Empire  to-day  is 
great  its  greatness  is  mainly  due  to  Gladstone's  genius 
in  the  extension  of  the  old  constitutional  principles  to 
the  new  and  enormously  enlarged  conditions  without 
wresting  them  so  far  from  their  ancient  sense  as  to  create 
a  peril  to  rights  at  home  while  making  new  rights  abroad. 

"Within  the  limits  of  a  sketch  such  as  this  there  is  no 
opportunity,  nor  is  there  need,  to  pass  in  review  the 
statesmanship  of  this  great  English  leader  of  the  state 
or  to  indicate  any  of  the  benefits  which  his  wise  leader- 
ship has  extended  as  far  as  the  British  empire  reaches. 
But  we  may  with  benefit  examine  in  brief  survey  some 
of  the  elements  which  entered  into  his  career  both  at 
St.  Stephen's  and  at  Hawarden. 

Leadership  seems  scarcely  to  have  come  to  Gladstone 
by  birth,  as  it  does  to  some  leaders.  His  was  the  appeal 
to  the  intellect,  not  the  challenge  to  the  surprised  senti- 
ment which  meets  the  call  with  sentimental  loyalty. 
Some  men  have  the  magnetic  personality  which  can  tune 
the  ringing  voice  to  the  cry  of  "follow"  and  at  once  an 
army  dashes  forward  at  the  double  with  no  thought  of 
what  the  end  may  be.  Gladstone  led  his  parliamentary 
forces  with  no  such  shout.  His  was  the  art  to  argue, 
to  pile  logic  upon  proof,  example  upon  reason  until  the 
opposition  was  buried  under  his  weight  of  reasoning. 
His  was  the  art  of  figures,  he  showed  how  the  national 
90 


i8o9  William  Ewart  Gladstone  1898 

pocket  was  touched,  it  was  never  absent  from  his  knowl- 
edge that  the  seat  in  Parliament  of  Her  Majesty's  Gov- 
ernment was  the  Treasury  Bench.  The  men  who  fol- 
lowed him  followed  him  with  loyalty  because  they  were 
convinced  by  his  mastery  of  argument,  an  effective  loy- 
alty albeit  a  cold  one.  The  opposition  went  down  be- 
fore him  in  all  his  parliamentary  battles  because  he  had 
soundly  overthrown  them,  yet  such  an  overthrow  could 
little  avail  to  win  him  generous  converts. 

It  is  as  yet  no  easy  task  to  form  a  sound  estimate  of  the 
lasting  successes  won  by  Gladstone  and  his  lifelong  rival. 
"We  have  already  had  occasion  to  point  out  that  one  of 
Gladstone's  great  deeds  was  in  the  execution  of  a  project 
which  England  owes  to  Disraeli.  The  Liberal  and  the 
Conservative  in  these  days  of  the  accepted  imperial  idea 
are  scarcely  more  than  in  name  the  Liberal  and  the 
Conservative  of  the  not  remote  day  of  these  two  great 
protagonists.  Yet  it  is  not  too  soon  to  see  that  in  the 
underlying  policy  of  each  of  the  two  great  parties  in 
the  English  commonwealth  there  is  somewhat  more  of 
the  basis  of  the  Gladstonian  accomplishment  than  may 
be  assigned  to  his  brilliant  rival. 

Gladstone's  was  in  essence  a  life  of  industry,  he  did 
those  things  which  to  his  formal  mind  seemed  the  proper 
things  for  the  Englishman  of  position  to  do.  It  was 
not  enough  that  he  devoted  his  life  to  the  service  of  the 
state,  that  was  to  him  a  duty  whether  in  ofBce  or  on  the 
opposition  bench.     He  did  his  duty  with  the  same  pre- 

91 


i8o9  William  Evvart  Gladstone  1898 

cision  in  his  more  private  life  as  a  country  gentleman. 
"When  we  see  him  reading  the  lessons  in  his  parish  church 
at  Hawarden  not  even  the  meanest  mind  can  suspect  the 
publicity  trick  of  the  petty  politician,  it  was  proper  to 
his  position  and  he  did  it  simply. 

In  the  same  simple  force  of  position-necessity  he  en- 
tered into  the  literary  life  of  his  age,  a  duty  which  he 
owed  to  the  university  which  had  nourished  him  and  to 
the  culture  of  the  society  of  which  he  formed  a  part.  In 
Addison's  time  one  sees  the  university  man  on  his  grand 
tour  making  his  collection  of  medals,  in  that  time  that 
was  one's  debt  to  culture.  In  this  later  time  medals 
had  passed  from  favor,  Gladstone  found  his  era  devoted 
to  literature.  Hence  it  was  his  simple  duty  simply  seen 
and  recognized  to  foster  literature.  Who  can  number 
the  books  which  came  upon  the  world  with  Gladstone's 
approval?  What  value  after  all  did  that  approval 
have*?  Yet  it  was  typical  of  the  man  in  his  sense  of  his 
duty  to  his  own  world.  He  did  his  part  toward  litera- 
ture with  his  own  pen.  Look  at  his  "Juventus  Mundi," 
a  learned  essay,  in  some  respects  a  scholarly  work.  It 
was  in  part  his  discharge  of  his  debt  to  the  culture  which 
had  been  given  him. 

Beyond  any  doubt  he  was  a  great  man,  even  a  great 
Englishman,  yet  his  Queen  at  times  could  scarcely  tol- 
erate him.  Any  one  who  can  tell  whether  the  difficulty 
lay  in  the  man,  the  woman,  or  the  system  of  constitu- 
tional government  will  be  far  on  his  way  toward  the 
historic  estimate  of  Gladstone. 
92 


FELIX   MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY 


The  Marvellous  Year 


Felix  Mendelssohn-Bartholdy 

That  sweetness  above  all  should  be  the  character  of 
the  music  which  Mendelssohn  added  to  the  world's  sense 
of  enjoyment  may  be  found  a  natural  outgrowth  from  his 
parentage.  On  the  father's  side  he  was  descended  from 
that  race  which  in  centuries  of  trial  has  chosen  with  pas- 
sion the  culture  of  the  higher  intelligence,  which  has  con- 
tributed to  art  in  its  various  forms  so  disproportionate  a 
list  of  great  names.  For  his  children  Abraham  Men- 
delssohn, first  in  Hamburg,  then  in  Berlin  a  banker  of 
wealth  and  position,  chose  the  faith  not  of  his  fathers. 
Such  a  course  could  do  no  other  than  produce  in  the 
young  Felix  a  sense  of  peace,  a  feeling  of  the  emptiness 
as  well  as  the  inconvenience  of  the  more  violent  emo- 
tions. Perhaps  it  led  to  inadequacy.  Mendelssohn 
came  to  recognize  that  for  himself  when  he  brought  him- 
self to  sober  consideration  of  the  propriety  of  cancelling 
the  "O  Rest  in  the  Lord"  because  it  seemed  to  him,  as 
to  others  it  has  seemed,  too  sweet.  Yet  what  could  one 
expect  from  such  conditions'?  Professing  one  faith  he 
must  respect  the  older;  he  could  not  feel  other  than  a 
reconciler,  and  he  who  has  the  task  of  reconciliation  must 
avoid  the  heights. 

The  path  of  his  art  was  made  smooth  for  him.  He 
lived  in  an  atmosphere  of  wealth  and  refinement,  he  not 

95 


i8o9  Felix  Mendelssohn-Bartholdy  1847 

only  responded  to  the  opportunities  which  were  pre- 
sented to  him  without  difficulties,  but  he  improved  them 
to  the  full  and  early.  He  was  but  seventeen  when  he 
composed  that  wonderful  Opus  20,  the  octet  for  strings, 
and  the  still  richer  orchestral  overture  to  "A  Midsum- 
mer Night's  Dream."  He  may  in  later  life  have 
equalled  the  latter  of  these  great  efforts,  he  certainly 
never  surpassed  it  in  beauty  of  treatment  and  originality 
of  conception. 

Upon  England  Mendelssohn  most  greatly  impressed 
his  art,  and  in  England  the  impression  has  remained  most 
permanent  and  less  open  to  cavil.  It  was  in  1829,  in  his 
twentieth  year,  that  he  made  his  first  visit  across  the 
Channel,  the  first  of  ten  visits  of  a  steady  progress  in  the 
triumph  of  his  art.  At  that  time  England  was  at  the 
feet  of  Handel  and  composition  and  execution  were 
rigidly  held  to  the  methods  of  that  earlier  master.  The 
time  was  ripe  for  the  coming  of  the  young  genius,  and 
his  creative  activity  was  equally  ripe  to  supply  the  type 
of  music  which  should  overthrow  the  Handel  obsession. 
To  almost  every  field  of  musical  activity  he  was  able  to 
contribute,  to  the  violinist,  to  the  choralist,  to  the  organ- 
ist, to  the  pianist,  to  the  orchestra  he  showed  himself  able 
to  present  a  wealth  of  compositions,  grateful  in  the  per- 
formance, sweet  to  the  ear  and  easy  to  follow  with  com- 
prehension. 

His  music  written  for  the  piano  has  had  a  popularity 
almost  without  parallel,  and  its  educational  value  has 
96 


i8o9  Felix  Mendelssohn-Bartholdy  1847 

been  almost  inestimable  in  the  effect  upon  the  fingers 
of  two  generations  of  young  pianists  and  upon  their 
comprehension  of  musical  values.  It  falls  far  short  of 
the  similar  work  of  the  greater  masters,  but  it  is  always 
neat,  faultlessly  so,  brilliant  and  melodious.  To  many 
a  performer  the  "Lieder  ohne  Worte"  must  remain  the 
summit  of  dexterity  in  execution,  and  to  such  it  is  a  satis- 
faction that  the  product  is  so  instinct  with  sweetness  and 
charm.  Of  his  concertos  that  for  the  violin  has  retained 
a  deserved  popularity,  it  has  marked  a  development 
stage  in  the  progress  of  almost  every  artist  upon  that 
instrument. 

His  symphonies  remain  to  the  music  of  the  present  as 
an  agreeable,  if  not  essentially  strong,  relief  from  the 
puzzles  which  under  that  designation  now  tax  the  ear  and 
stagger  the  comprehension.  The  "Italian  Symphony" 
is  clear  air  and  light  in  a  musical  setting;  and  the  "Scotch 
Symphony"  with  its  sweet  melody  and  tempered  agita- 
tion is  likely  to  possess  for  years  to  come  the  interest 
which  it  so  long  has  held. 

In  the  more  popular  field  of  song  writing  Mendelssohn 
is  far  greater  for  what  he  was  not  than  for  what  he  was. 
He  ranks  nowhere  near  the  heights  occupied  by  Schubert, 
Schumann  and  Brahms  in  this  line  of  composition.  But 
he  is  truly  great  in  that  he  showed  the  way  out  from 
the  dulness  of  drawing  room  music  as  he  found  it.  Yet 
this  is  by  no  means  to  be  taken  as  implying  that  there 
are  not  things  of  charm  in  the  79  compositions  which  he 

97 


i8o9  Felix  Mendelssohn-Bartholdy  1847 

made  in  this  class;  one  may  not  lightly  dismiss  "On 
Wings  of  Song,"  the  "Garland"  and  "The  First  Violet." 

The  England  to  which  Mendelssohn  came  found  its 
highest  expression  of  musical  art  in  the  oratorio.  It  is 
small  wonder  that  he  reached  his  highest  pinnacle  of 
appreciation  with  the  first  performance  of  "Elijah"  at 
the  Birmingham  festival  in  1846.  Sixty  years  later,  two 
generations  of  life  in  which  the  oratorio  has  somewhat 
lost  its  former  place,  "Elijah"  yet  avails  to  attract  its 
crowds  and  to  win  from  them  just  as  much  approval  as 
it  drew  from  their  grandparents.  It  is  an  acknowledg- 
ment of  the  charm  which  its  composer  put  into  the  music, 
a  tribute  to  the  skill  with  which  he  wiped  out  from  their 
minds  the  feeling  that  there  might  be  heights  and  depths 
in  oratorio  method  which  this  equally  avoided.  The 
form  as  he  presents  it  is  lucid,  the  technic  is  exquisite  and 
wholly  safe,  the  climaxes  are  masses  of  sweet  tone  that 
satisfy  the  sense  of  the  beautiful.  It  may  well  be  that 
he  reveals  in  his  oratorios  little  of  the  subtlety,  the  sug- 
gestion, the  profound  expression  of  other  masters  of 
that  form,  but  it  cannot  be  denied  that  he  amply  satis- 
fied his  own  public  and  that  his  continued  popularity  to 
the  present  day  is  by  no  means  a  satisfaction  of  historical 
curiosity. 

He  brought  pleasure  to  a  great  audience,  and  that  is 
no  light  degree  of  credit.     He  may  not  have  advanced 
the  art  of  music,  but  he  certainly  presented  its  beauties 
with  sweet  skill. 
98 


, 


EDWARD   FITZGERALD 


The  Marifellous  Year 


Edward  Fitzgerald 

Instinct  with  the  nicest  delicacy  of  taste  nothing  gives 
a  clearer  view  of  Fitzgerald's  attitude  toward  his  work 
than  his  consistent  withdrawal  of  his  name  from  title 
pages.  If  the  work  was  good  when  it  left  his  hands, 
and  it  was  only  his  own  critical  sense  which  could  find 
a  blemish,  it  was  enough  for  him  that  the  work  was 
indeed  good,  the  name  was  nothing  in  comparison  with 
the  work,  he  sought  no  fame  as  the  man  who  did 
the  work.  It  was  such  a  spirit  as  actuated  the  artisan 
of  the  middle  ages  and  made  him  artist  because  he  was 
willing  to  set  the  work  above  the  worker.  The  sole  ex- 
ception to  this  blank  title  page,  the  only  time  when  he 
yielded  to  the  urgent  importunity  of  his  friends,  was 
in  his  "Six  Dramas  of  Calderon"  which  appeared  in  1853 
with  his  name  as  author  of  the  translation.  Other  of 
his  work  fell  upon  neglect,  this  met  with  disapproval. 
He  withdrew  it  from  the  public,  returning  to  his  sober 
conviction  that  in  such  work  the  name  of  the  author  was 
a  drawback. 

Yet  no  name  better  deserved  its  place  than  his,  the 
verdict  came  slow  but  it  came  sure,  the  world  now  knows 
that  English  poetry  can  list  no  name  more  worthy  than 
that  of  Edward  Fitzgerald. 

101 


i8o9  Edward  Fitzgerald  1883 

His  is  the  record  of  shy  genius.  That  shall  appear 
in  the  earliest  history  of  the  quatrains  of  the  Tent-Maker 
of  Naishapdr.  He  gave  the  slender  volume  to  his  friend 
and  publisher,  Quaritch,  in  1858.  But  two  hundred 
copies  were  printed  and  the  failure  was  as  absolute  as 
immediate.  The  whole  printing,  in  the  dialect  of  the 
book  trade,  would  not  move  at  five  shillings;  the  lot, 
and  still  we  must  use  that  trade  dialect,  was  put  out 
as  remainders  for  a  penny  the  copy,  the  value  of  the  white 
paper  discounted  because  of  the  blemish  of  the  ink  upon 
its  surface.  At  this  scant  figure  copies  are  known  to 
have  come  into  the  possession  of  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti, 
Algernon  Charles  Swinburne,  Sir  Richard  Burton.  Ap- 
preciation was  instant.  Each  formed  a  focus  from  which 
the  revelation  of  this  chance  discovered  beauty  was  set 
in  radiation.  Rossetti  in  particular  heralded  to  the 
world  of  taste  the  finding  of  this  gem  which  was  stamped 
with  the  art  of  the  truest  poetry  yet  which  bore  no  name. 
From  that  beginning  the  name  of  Fitzgerald  and  the 
name  of  Omar  have  been  linked  indissolubly.  The 
quatrains  passed  through  four  editions  before  Fitzgerald 
rested  content  with  its  final  shape,  the  second  in  1868, 
the  third  in  1872,  the  fourth  in  1879,  ^^is  differing  but 
in  a  few  words  from  the  third.  Since  then  it  has  been 
reprinted  in  hundreds  of  forms,  it  has  been  embellished 
with  critical  apparatus,  it  has  been  adorned  with  all  the 
resources  of  art.  To  the  world  at  large  it  remains  the 
source  of  Fitzgerald's  fame.  It  is  only  the  rarely  ap- 
102 


i8o9  Edward  Fitzgerald  1883 

preciative  soul  that  cherishes  his  other  work,  the  Calderon 
plays  with  yet  others  from  the  same  source,  the  "Euphra- 
nor,"  the  "SalamSn  and  Absal  of  Jami"  another  draught 
from  the  Persian  jug,  and  the  "Agamemnon." 

Fitzgerald  was  the  finest  product  of  English  culture, 
of  Cambridge  culture  in  that  university  to  which  he  re- 
turned again  and  again.  Yet  he  was  Irish,  doubly  Irish, 
and  on  each  side  of  the  house  of  Irish  distinction.  It  is 
in  no  sense  cheap  humor  that  we  must  ascribe  to  one 
well  known  Irish  trait,  for  the  bull  of  that  country  is  a 
classic,  the  possession  by  English  literature  of  the  Per- 
sian poet.  In  the  unwise  scholarship  of  his  university 
days  Persia  and  Ireland  were  brought  together  in  a 
strange  family  for  no  better  reason  than  that  Erin  and 
Iran  suggested  each  the  other.  Accepting  this  opinion 
without  question,  for  it  passed  current  then  in  the  in- 
fancy of  ethnology,  nothing  could  come  with  a  warmer 
appeal  to  the  Irish  student  than  to  put  into  English  the 
poetry  of  his  sister  race. 

His  marriage  to  the  daughter  of  Bernard  Barton,  the 
Quaker  poet,  brings  him  into  the  sphere  of  those  for  whom 
the  gentle  and  tortured  Elia  was  the  centre.  The  mar- 
riage was  a  short  one,  not  at  all  happy,  coming  soon  to  a 
separation  in  friendly  agreement  which  displayed  the  im- 
pulsive generosity  of  the  man.  Thereafter  his  life  is  to 
be  sought  in  his  friendships,  and  the  good  taste  of  such 
as  he  would  seek  in  friendship  has  left  the  record  almost 
empty  of  detail. 

103 


i8o9  Edward  Fitzgerald  1883 

We  have  seen  the  discovery  of  the  Rubaiyat  by  Burton, 
by  Swinburne,   by   Rossetti.     Of  such  sort  were   the 
friends  of  Fitzgerald's  heart,  rare  minds,  sweet  souls. 
Rossetti  undertook  to  spread  among  the  worthy,  among 
those  whom  his  dainty  instinct  knew  to  be  worthy,  the 
knowledge  of  this  new  enrichment  of  art  even  when  the 
author  was  as  yet  unknown.     For  the  author  he  did  as 
much  as  for  the  work  and  with  equal  care  in  selection. 
Fitzgerald  entered  into  the  best  life  of  English  thought, 
never  found  in  the  crowd  of  the  commonplace,  for  he 
made  no  appeal  to  the  smug  and  the  respectable.     It 
is  in  the  letters  of  his  friends  that  we  find  the  broadest 
imprint  of  his  scholarly  life.     From  friend  to  friend  let- 
ters passed  carrying  the  news  of  some  influence  which 
Fitzgerald  had  exerted  upon  the  writer,  some  suggestion 
of  work  to  be  done  and  gratefully  received,  some  help- 
ful criticism  of  work  not  yet  ready  to  present  to  the 
public.     If  we  had  a  greater  volume  of  the  letters  of 
his  time  we  should  have  more  Fitzgerald  beyond  a  doubt, 
for  benevolence  was  an  instinct  of  his  mind.     To  him 
it  was  duty  and  pleasure  to  draw  out  the  struggling  soul, 
to  make  cowards  brave,  to  honor  the  call  of  conscience 
each  for  his  own  ability  to  hear  its  voice,  to  each  of  his 
acquaintance  to  instill  the  blessing  of  quick  sympathy 
with  the  joys  and  griefs  of  even  the  least  of  those  with 
whom  their  lot  was  thrown.     From  the  best  of  his  friends, 
even  from  those  whom  he  lifted  for  a  moment  out  of 
mere  acquaintance,  we  know  that  he  was  not  only  a 
genius,  his  soul  was  a  place  of  comfort. 
104 


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